Noble Lies (7 page)

Chapter Twelve

  

Jarin took one last drag before dropping the stub of his cigarette onto the dead man's back. It stuck to a sticky lump of congealed blood that had pooled in a fold of the shirt, just above his waist, smoldering out.

The man lay face down, his eyes wide, his mouth open, his body already bloating in the mid-morning heat. He had let someone get behind him, someone who knew what he was doing, the long kitchen knife slicing his kidney in two, twisting the blade as the man went into shock, dead before he hit the ground. The idiot.

Jarin knew the kind of men that worked for him. Not their names, of course. Most were like this one, bottom feeders, far down the food chain. He must have dozens just like him on one payroll or another, too stupid or too lazy to work for anyone else. But, obviously, stupid or lazy enough to get themselves killed. Jarin wondered what the book would say about this.

He had picked it up at the airport in Singapore, the first book he ever bought and the only one he could remember ever reading. It took the better part of a month but he'd gotten through it, reading a page or two every morning, squatting over the porcelain hole of the traditional toilet in his twenty-million-bhat home. Top Dog: The Ten Rules of Pit Bull Leadership. It was, according to the cover, everything the successful businessman needed to know to turn an under-performing mutt into a Rottweiler success story. And Jarin knew something about both.

As a kid he had trained fighting dogs for Sok Saek, one of Bangkok's most ruthless gunmen. He had learned a lot from the dogs and learned a lot more from Sok Saek. Things were different back then, easier. Everything done on a handshake or at the end of a barrel. Now it was all unilateral agreements and strategic cooperation, multi-national corporations and electronic funds transfers. And fucking lawyers everywhere. It was almost impossible to make a living. That's why he bought the book. The book said it had the answers, all he had to do was follow the rules, starting with Rule Number One.

You can either play with the puppies or run with the big dogs.

He was twenty kilos overweight, he smoked constantly and liked his Mekong whiskey straight, but as he looked at the body on the floor, Jarin knew it was time to run.

And this race would be with Mr. Shawn.

Jarin stepped around the body and walked into the kitchen, a squad of his men scurrying to get out of his way. Propped up on a stool next to the sink, a row of empty Coke bottles behind him, the man with the twisted arm rocked back and forth. His face was pasty white and his teeth clattered together, his lips red and swollen where they had ripped off the tape. His arm rested on his lap, his elbow bending two different ways. Jarin stood in front of the man and lit a fresh cigarette, the man looking up at him, the terror clear in his eyes. Jarin drew in on the cigarette, blowing the smoke out his nose, and said, “Describe him.”

The man was shaking now, the legs of the stool knocking against the metal cabinets. He opened his mouth to speak, stuttering, nothing but air coming out. Jarin sighed and shook his head, pointing to the man's arm. “Did he do this to you?”

The man looked down, surprised that Jarin had even noticed, then looked up, his head nodding in jerky movements as Jarin snatched a bottle off the counter and cracked it against the man's elbow. The man screamed and toppled over, his nose catching the rim of the sink as he fell, the blood cascading down his face, down the white metal doors. He squirmed tight against the cabinet, his good arm reaching up to block the next blow, Jarin grabbing the stool and slamming it down once on the man's ankles before throwing it out of the way, stepping forward, the sole of his sandal pressed hard against the man's face.

“Ferang,” the man shouted, not daring to touch the foot that was crushing his jaw. “He was ferang.”

Jarin leaned both hands on the counter and dragged his sandal across the man's face and down onto his neck. He could see the man looking up at him, his eyes wild, too afraid to move. Jarin shifted, rising up, all of his weight pressing down on the man's throat. He flexed his knee, bouncing once, twice, holding his foot in place, the man never as much as kicking out.

It took less than a minute.

Jarin lifted his foot and turned his back on the man, running a hand across his head, sweeping his thin hair back in place.

Of course he was ferang. The locals couldn't even look at him without cowering, let alone try something like this. Even now his own men looked away, men half his age, stronger, each of them carrying guns. And every one of them puppies.

Then there was Mr. Shawn.

Jarin walked out of the kitchen, through the hallway, the men shuffling behind him. He stepped around the body, saying, “Get rid of them,” without turning around, and walked out the front door and onto the porch.

Another morning in Phuket. Another day at the head of the pack. Jarin closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath through his broad, flat and twice-broken nose, clearing his head.

Rule Number Four: Bite ‘em on the ass when they least expect it.

The rule had more to do with motivating employees with incentives, shaking up management teams, and surprising competitors with new marketing ideas, but Jarin saw how it applied to his world as well. Mr. Shawn's little adventure last year had cost him a great deal of money, but it was more than just that. And it was more than the fact that Mr. Shawn had put a kink in what had up to that point been a smooth operation, an operation that had taken several years and countless bribes to establish.

This Mr. Shawn, he realized, had just bitten him on the ass. Again.

Jarin didn't need a book to tell him what he had to do.

 

***

 

Mark Rohr wiped the salt spray off his sunglasses and looked across the inlet. Crowded tight along the back of the beach, a row of thatch-roofed huts perched high on bamboo legs, lines of wet laundry flapping like flags across the small fishing village, a dozen long-tail boats moored up on the sand. As their own long-tail had motored north along the west coast of Phuket, Mark had watched hundreds of boats cruise back and forth through the night, fishermen heading out or heading home, pea-green chemical glow-sticks tied around the stubby point on the low bow. Miles from shore, trawlers attracted whole schools of fish with banks of lights that lit the water like a movie set.

It had taken longer to get down to the boat than he had expected. The old man had led the way, taking them down a hillside path that ran parallel to the main road. They had passed close to several houses, people on the porch watching them as they walked past, the old man looking straight ahead, the boy quiet, watching his feet, careful not to trip on the roots that buckled up under the packed dirt. They crossed the beach road at a dark bend and went down to the shore, the long-tail waiting just as JJ had promised. They walked out into ankle-deep water and stepped over the low bow, the old man swinging the boy up and into Pim's arms. The boat's owner pull-started the motor, swinging the ten-foot propeller shaft to the side and into the surf.

“Any problems?” Robin had said.

“None that could be avoided.”

“An old man and a kid.” She shook her head. It was dark but Mark was sure she was not smiling. “She better not be lying.”

Despite its shallow draft and narrow width, the boat proved stable on the open water, but the sea was flat and Mark wondered how stable it would have been with even modest swells. He sat on an ass-wide board at the bow, Robin behind him, settled between their backpacks on the bottom of the boat, her bare feet up over the side, her tribal tattoo anklet visible against her lighter skin. The old man had sat near the center of the boat. He kept his back straight and his hands on his knees, staring ahead the entire trip. Pim had the last seat—the boy, almost as big as her, asleep on her lap. At the rear of the boat, his lean body silhouetted against the night sky, the boat's owner stood on one leg, a heel propped against a bony knee, a lazy hand on the throttle. When the drive chain broke and flew overboard—the engine revving wildly, waking Robin but not the boy—Mark thought they might drift till morning. But the owner pulled a cardboard box from behind the gas cans, drawing out an oily chain that he wound into place, knocking the engine tight with a wooden mallet, all of it done by the faint light of the crescent moon.

He'd known lots of nights just like this one. Hugging some dark shore, sneaking through some mountain pass, bullshitting past a check point, driving all night in a stolen truck. Sailing off Yemen. Crossing the desert in Libya. Hiding in Iran. Lost in Wherethefuckistan. And in the hold or in the trunk or strapped under a coat or fiber-glassed to the fuselage, kilos of Ethiopian qat, cases of AK-47s, barrels of Johnny Walker, blocks of hashish, DVDs of porn. And people. Illegals looking to get in, a different kind of illegal looking to get out. If the pay was good and the odds acceptable, the cargo didn't matter. And if the pay was excellent, nothing mattered. But the pay was never excellent and the odds were always greater than you planned for, and too many times there was no pay at all. The risk of doing business with the kind of people who needed his skills.

And it was always the easy jobs that fell apart. Just drop off the package and you get paid. Get me across the border and it's yours. Bring it in and you get the reward. Find my brother and I'll pay you five grand. He didn't expect anybody to get killed—he never did—but things happen, especially on the easy jobs. A weekend into this one and so far one guy was dead, he had a fat welt on the side of his head; and in addition to a hot blonde with a surprising catty streak, he was hauling around an old man and a little kid because a Thai hooker who claimed to have the information he needed refused to leave them behind.

It was still early but Mark knew that there was a chance this job wasn't always going to be this easy.

“Hey Columbus,” Robin said, tapping the seat of his shorts with her painted toenails, “if you see a drive-thru, pull in and get me a tall coffee.” She was stretched out along the bottom of the boat, her head propped up on his backpack, her eyes shut behind her sunglasses, cool despite the rising heat and thick, humid air.

“Pim,” he said turning around, raising his voice to be heard over the popping motor. “Is this where we stop?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the beachside shacks.

“Yes, we stop here,” she said. “For now.”

“For now,” Robin repeated, just loud enough for Mark to hear. “Lovely. Just fucking lovely.”

Chapter Thirteen

  

“Sawatdee kaa,” Pim said, placing her palms together as she bowed her head, the tips of her fingers brushing the end of her nose.

“Sawatdee krup,” the old man responded, bringing his hands up chest high to return the gesture, smiling at the girl. She was well dressed, her jeans and blouse worth more than all the clothes in his home, but her wâai showed respect to his advanced age; and as he watched her climb the stairs to the porch, taking off her sandals and stopping at the top step so that her head remained lower than his as he sat on the wooden bench. The old man was glad to see that some parents still taught their children the important things in life.

He had watched as they had climbed out of the boat. The two ferangs had jumped out first, sandals in their hands in the knee-deep water. Like all ferangs, they had overstuffed backpacks, with straps dangling like ribbons and liter-sized bottles of water lashed to net pouches, carrying more with them than he owned, everywhere they went. The man looked like all ferangs, too tall and too big, but the girl was a pleasant surprise, with her long, blonde hair and curvy figure; a welcome change from the black-haired, flat-chested women he was used to seeing. The Thai girl was pretty, dainty but not fragile, her perfect white teeth and smooth skin reminding him of the village girls of his youth. There was an older gentleman in the boat, and he had watched as this man climbed out without assistance. He guessed they would be about the same age, that man and him, and he hoped that they would have time to talk. Stripping off his shirt and shorts, a small boy—no older than his own great-grand children—dove into the water, the ferang throwing a coconut far out into the low rolling surf for the boy to retrieve. Few outsiders stopped by the village and the old man tried not to let his curiosity show.

“You have a lovely home, sir, and I am humbled that you have opened your doors to me,” Pim said, adding the polite kâ ending to her sentence, her Thai light and clear.

“You are welcome,” the old man said, motioning for Pim to sit on the palm frond mat at his feet. “What is your name, child?”

“I am Pim.”

“And your father?” he said pointing to the boat.

“My father is dead. That is my grandfather.”

The old man nodded. “And I am Saai, but you may call me Uncle. You are not from here. What is your village?”

“My ancestors are from Ko Yao Yai but our home was on Ko Phi Phi. Now we live in Patong.”

The old man nodded. He had never traveled to any of those places but he had fished for years in the waters off Ko Yao Yai, the long island, and Ko Yao Noi, its smaller sister, and he had heard how Patong had become a wild place, popular with tourists. And he had heard what had happened on Phi Phi. “I hope that your family is happy in Patong,” he said, asking about the tsunami without asking anything at all.

Pim bowed her head. “My parents would not have liked Patong very much, and I think my nephew and grandfather miss our old home.”

“And the ferangs,” he said, pausing to watch them approach his home, “where are they from?”

“Somewhere in America,” Pim said, glancing back at Mark and Robin as they started up the steps. “Uncle, do you speak English?”

The old man laughed.

“Perhaps that is best,” Pim said, speaking more to herself than the old man. On the beach, the boatman pull-started the motor on the long-tail, swinging the ten-foot shaft to the side of the boat to maneuver out to sea. The boy waved at the boat but the man did not look back. On the stairs, the tall ferang nodded at the old man, the blonde gave a quick grin.

“You will stay and have something to eat. The fish is fresh and it is good. It may not be as fancy as you are used to in Phuket…”

“That is very kind of you Uncle, but there are five of us.”

“I can count, child. Tell your friends that they are welcome.”

“Thank you, Uncle.” Pim paused and wet her lip, working up the courage to say what needed to be said, now before it was too late. “Uncle, I am embarrassed to ask a favor of you.”

“The embarrassment is mine if I am unable to help.”

Pim took the photo from her shirt pocket but held it behind her hands. Behind her, the steps creaked as Mark and Robin leaned forward. “The ferangs have come very far. They are looking for a man. He may have traveled past here not long ago.”

“Not many people stop here.”

“I know this, Uncle. Now please, if you will, I will show you the picture and if you have seen the man, I would be grateful if you would tell me all about it.” The old man reached out a gnarled hand but Pim held the photo close. “And Uncle, if you have not seen the man, if he did not come by this way,” she said, taking time to swallow, “I ask you to please point to the south.”

The old man glared at Pim and she looked down at the mat.

“This is the favor you need of me? To help you deceive the ferangs? To lie to them? Is this what you ask me to do?”

Pim drew in a deep breath and lowered her head. “Yes, Uncle.”

He looked past her to the ferangs, the couple smiling at him. The old man looked back at Pim, running a hand through his thick white hair before reaching out his hand again. Pim hesitated, then gave him the photo.

The man in the picture was a ferang, with the muscular build of a kick-boxer and a smile like the toothpaste ads that they showed on satellite TV. The man was on a beach but it didn't look like any beach he knew. It was missing green islands on the horizon and the long-tail boats in the water and the sand was a different color. But it was a good beach, wide and flat, with plenty of places to moor a boat. Maybe the picture was taken in America—but if they had beaches like this, he wondered, why would they bother to come all the way to Thailand? He knew that there were beaches that were far prettier than the one on which he had spent his whole life. But life wasn't about finding a beautiful place to move to. It was about being moved by the beauty in the place you already lived.

The old man looked a moment longer, a broad grin cracking along his weathered face. “I hope you find what you are looking for,” he said, raising his arm, pointing a bony finger to the south.

 

***

 

“I've been in Thailand, what, four days?” Robin said, looking up as if the answer were written along the eaves of the old man's hut. “I think all I've eaten is rice.”

“It is served with every meal,” Pim said, scooping up a ball of sticky rice and fish off the square mat with the tips of her fingers. Cut from a single banana leaf, the mat folded under the pressure, making it easier for her to gather the stray grains. “It plays a similar role to bread in your country.”

“Thank you, Martha Stewart,” Robin said, the leaf mat buckling in her hand, spilling half the white rice onto her lap as she spoke.

They were sitting on the old man's porch, Robin and Mark together in the shade, Pim, her grandfather, and the boy leaning against the porch railing, their feet tucked under their legs, hidden from view. A large bowl of rice divided the groups, and a series of small plates—the pungent spices stronger than the smell of boiled fish—dotted the woven bamboo floor covering. The old man lay curled up in a droopy hammock. He had seen to it that the women of the household prepared a proper meal for his guests; and now, with the sound of pots being cleaned in the home, he drifted off on a well-deserved nap.

The fish was filled with pin-sized bones and after two bites, Robin gave up, doubling up on the rice. Across the porch, Pim and her family seemed to race through the meal, shoveling mounds of rice into their mouths, spitting the little bones under the railing. Mark made quick work of the meal as well, his fingers long adept at mastering rice and curry. He could taste the subtle flavors in the simple meal: the coconut milk broth and the diced chilies, the earthy lemongrass and sweet tamarind sauce. The tea was weak but the old man had added two scoops of clumpy sugar, which helped explain his toothless grin. It was a good meal and Mark sensed that it was better than the old man and his family usually ate.

“I want to give him something for the food,” Mark said to Pim as he sipped at his tea.

Pim frowned. “Please, this is not necessary.”

“We ate a lot. It's the least we could do.”

“If you do, if you give him money, you will insult him.” Pim shook her head, mumbling something to herself in Thai.

“What was that?” Robin said, raising her chin as she spoke.

“I said that Americans can not understand, that is all.”

Robin chuckled. “Americans know a thing or two about generosity, or have you forgotten all those aid shipments already?”

“We can never forget,” she said, her voice changing, the words sounding less like a promise and more like a command. “That was a great kindness. That kind of kindness Americans know well. But they don't know the small kindness. They don't know náam-jai,” she said, the others looking over when they heard the familiar Thai word. “The juice of the heart.”

“Yeah, kindness. Okay, big deal. I get it.”

“No, Miss, you do not,” Pim said, countering Robin's sarcasm with a gentle smile. “This man, he invited us to eat, not because he is kind but because we were hungry. If he did not feed us his neighbors would think less of him, and his family would be ashamed.”

“They'd lose face,” Mark said.

“Yes, but it is even more than that. The way he feels about himself—the way all Thais feel about themselves—it is all based on náam-jai. You can not feel good about yourself if you have not helped others who are in need.”

Robin nudged Mark with her elbow, raising an eyebrow. “You buying any of this?”

“Excuse me, Miss,” Pim said, waiting for Robin to look at her before she continued. “I have only known you for a short time but I can tell that you are a daring woman. I have met many American women and they are like this, too. Being daring, it is important where you are from; it is the way you were raised. You do not think about being daring. You are daring. Here, in Thailand, we do not think about being generous, we just do what we have been taught to do.”

“Well Mark, it seems we've stumbled onto paradise, a little slice of heaven where everyone does kind and good things and no one is unhappy; and tourists don't get overcharged just because they're tourists, and bad men don't lock up young women and force them to be hookers to cover somebody else's debts. Nope, everything is just peachy-keen here in Thailand.”

Pim's shoulders drooped and Mark could hear her sigh over the old man's snoring. She opened her mouth to speak but said nothing, looking down at the banana leaf mat, pushing a stray grain of rice to the center with her painted fingernail. Out of the corner of his eye, Mark could see the smirk on Robin's face. He pinched a piece of fish and a scoop of rice between his fingers, sliding it into his mouth, washing it down with the over-sweet tea, coughing once to clear his throat before he spoke, startling the old man from his nap.

“This was an excellent meal.” He said the words slowly and clearly, his tone matching his broad grin, patting his firm, flat stomach with both hands. “Pim, please tell this gentleman that this was the finest fish I have ever tasted.” He looked up at the man as he gestured to the pile of fish bones on the mat. “And tell him that I hope to repay his kindness someday.”

Pim sat up, her smile bright against her dark skin and ink-black hair. She looked first at Mark, then turned and spoke to the old man, repeating what she said when he cupped a hand behind his ear. There was a whiney, piercing quality to the language, a high-pitched and nasal tone that was drawn out with every long A and hyper-extended syllable, a shrewish tongue that did not match the angelic face. He knew he wasn't supposed to think that way, that it made him, as a former Bengali girlfriend had pointed out, a “culturally insensitive jackass.” But he also knew that he preferred it when Pim spoke English.

“I told him the first part, about how much you liked the fish. You made him very happy,” Pim said as the old man grinned his toothless grin.

“What about my offer to help him?”

Pim kept her smile as she shook her head. “There is no need. It's náam-jai. He knows that you will not forget and one day you may help him, too. This is what people do.”

“Well you better hurry up and do something nice for him soon,” Robin said, wiping her hands off on an extra banana leaf mat. “You said the old man told you Shawn went to the south, and in case you forgot, that's why we're here.”

“Pim, those boats,” Mark pointed, under the railing and out to the row of long-tails on the beach, “can we rent one, get somebody to take us down to…wherever?”

As she exchanged bursts of rapid-fire Thai with the old man, two girls, no older than Pim's nephew, cleared away the remaining food, rolling up the bamboo mat and sweeping the porch with stubby homemade brooms. The girls giggled when Mark winked at them, and they darted in and out of the open door, peeking around the old man's swaying hammock. Robin snagged one of the quick-moving girls as she sped past, setting the girl on her lap, tickling her sides till they were both breathless from laughter. She could turn it on and turn it off just like that, he thought. Sweet and innocent one minute, a smart-mouthed bitch the next and back again, all in the same breath. She looked good in a tank top and shorts, probably better in less, but all that changed when the claws came out. Then there was Pim.