Noble Lies (9 page)

Chapter Fifteen

 

He was late but he was still surprised to find her waiting for him in the lobby.

“Where is Miss Robin?” Pim asked. If she was pleased or disappointed that he had come alone, Mark didn't hear it in her words.

“The sun kicked her ass. She fell asleep as soon as she hit the bed.”

“Ngern, too.” She noticed Mark's expression and added, “My nephew. My grandfather even looked tired.”

“How about you? How you doing?”

“I have been waiting for this for more than a year. I am ready.”

He gave a slight bow and waved his hand, allowing her to lead the way through the lobby and out into the humid night.

Across the street, strings of bright bulbs lit up the night market, and a slow-moving crowd brought traffic to a standstill. There were markets like this in every corner of the world, all of them alike, all of them different. Some were deadend mazes of filthy stalls; some, like this one, were orderly and, if not clean, at least not as bad as they could have been. The tourists always went looking for monkey heads and skewered rats roasting over hot coals, disappointed when they found pizza stands and ice cream vendors. Mark and Pim passed stalls of fresh fruits and vegetables, some he knew, some he couldn't identify, and they cut down a fragrant row that sold nothing but flowers. There were few tourists in the crowd and he towered over the shoppers, ducking to avoid the extension cords and speaker wires that passed from booth to booth. He couldn't understand a word but he knew what was being said as the shoppers haggled for the best deal, positive that they and they alone were being ripped off, paying top bhat for second-rate goods, every shop owner insisting just as passionately that they were losing money on the sale. They stopped to eat, Pim inhaling a bowl of rice and fish, Mark downing three Thai-sized hamburgers and a quart of Pepsi.

“I do not think Miss Robin likes me,” Pim said as they ate.

Mark shrugged. “I'm not so sure she's fond of me.”

She stopped eating and held her pose, her chopsticks steady above the plastic bowl. “Is it right for a sister to be jealous of her brother's happiness?”

Mark said nothing, ignoring the question, hoping she wouldn't repeat it.

“If my brother was married, I know that I would be happy for him and would make his wife feel welcome. I would not be mean to her or say cruel things, and I would not turn my eyes when she spoke to me. I would want to know about her and become her friend. She is the one who makes my brother happy, so I would want her to be happy.”

“She doesn't know you, that's all.”

“If my brother was married, I would want to get to know his wife. It would make me happy.” She sat still a moment longer, then shook her head, the idea falling apart. “But my brother is dead so it does not matter.”

Mark set down his burger, wiping his hands clean on his khaki shorts. “Robin's got a stack of pictures. I don't think she'll miss one.” He pulled a photo out of his shirt pocket and dropped it on the picnic table, careful to miss the splatters of ketchup and green spices. Pim set down her empty bowl and with both hands she lifted the picture. She stared at the image, different from the one he had given her before—a close-up of Shawn, shirtless, grinning for the camera, his shoulder raised and his arm angled in like he had taken the picture himself. Mark watched as she studied the photo, saw the light that sparked behind her eyes and the watery line that formed below her eyes.

“I was working at my father's clinic when we met. He had been rock climbing near the beach and had lost his footing. He slid and cut his leg badly but he was fortunate and nothing was broken. His friends had brought him to the clinic, but my father had taken the ferry to Phuket that day and would not be back for hours. His friends wanted to take him to Dr. Stubbs, the Australian, but Shawn told them no, he wanted me to take care of him. I explained that we were not doctors, that my father was just a pharmacist and that I was still in university, but he said that it didn't matter, that anyone with such beautiful eyes had to be an angel.” She looked up and smiled. “I know. It is a silly thing, but it worked.”

Mark could tell her that it wasn't just her eyes, that this Shawn guy was a lucky bastard for having met her and an idiot for leaving her behind. But he knew enough to say nothing.

“He came back the next day,” she continued, “and my father replaced his bandages. He asked my father if he could take me to dinner. I was so embarrassed.”

“Sounds like a gentleman to me.”

“For you, perhaps. But that is not how it is here. For us, such formalities mean that the man and woman are ready to be married. My father pretended not to hear. Shawn thought that this meant no, but that night we ate at the Two Palms restaurant on the beach. It was the best restaurant on the island. It is gone now.” She took a last look at the photo and handed it back to Mark. “Thank you, but I do not need more pictures to remember.”

Mark hesitated a moment before taking the photo. “If you change your mind…”

“Why are you here?” She was still smiling, but the words were firm.

Mark slid the photo back into his pocket. “I didn't want you to go snooping around alone. I know this is your country but there are—”

“No, Mr. Mark,” she said. “Why are you here in Thailand? Why are you helping Miss Robin?”

“She hired me to find her brother, that's all.”

“Was she a friend of yours?”

“No. I didn't know her.”

“So why did she come to you?”

“A friend of mine sent her to me.”

“You do not sound pleased.”

“Let's just say that me and this friend are now even.”

Mark finished off his hamburger, washing it down with the last of the Pepsi. She waited till he was done wadding up the wrappers and tossing them the ten feet into the open barrel, then said, “What do you do, your job?”

“Little of this, little of that. Lot of nothing.” She nodded, but he doubted that she understood.

“When you were young—like Ngern,” she said, hesitating before she continued. “Is this what you thought your life would be like? This and that and nothing?”

“No.” He laughed as he said it. “I sortta woke up one day and there I was.”

Pim looked down at her hands and nodded. “Me too.”

“Come on, let's get started,” Mark said, picking up Pim's empty rice bowl, standing as he spoke. “I don't want to be up all night.”

They continued through the stalls, coming out at the far end of the market, the bars and hotels on this side lacking the bright neon and familiar names that pulled in the foreigners. There were fewer people walking around, and the ones that leaned against the concrete walls of the empty shops or sat along the curb watched them approach: street corner toughs, cigarettes dangling from their lower lips, slack-jawed teens in dirty shirts and bare feet, pinpricks for pupils, old men in baggy clothes, gums chomping on air, a few women who called to him from the shadows, staying out of the revealing arc lighting of the street lamps, a few others who didn't give a damn what they looked like, walking right up to them as they passed, telling Mark the things he could do to them for five hundred bhat. Pim reached out for Mark's hand and he guided her along the street, holding open the door of one of the smaller bars on the strip.

There was no bowling alley, no Odenbach beer sign, no jukebox loaded with 70s rock CDs; and none of the bartenders had on a flannel shirt, but there was something about the nameless bar that reminded Mark of bars back home. It wasn't the low-hanging cloudbank of cigarette smoke—New York was smoke-free now anyway he heard—and it wasn't the four bottles of Thai whiskey that sat on the otherwise empty shelf behind the bar, but there was something about the place, a deadend vibe that decades on a bar stool had taught him to recognize. There was a handful of patrons, none of them looking up as Mark and Pim took a seat at an open table, enough problems of their own that they didn't need any more from this big ferang and his whore. The men were hunched over their Chang beers, straining their will power, trying to make one bottle last the night. The women—all four of them—were tired versions of bar-beer girls, worn out on the tourist trade, hanging on to the only career they knew. Mark scanned the crowd, wondering which pair of drooping shoulders belonged to the Thai version of himself.

“It would be best if you stay here while I ask questions,” Pim said, standing. “Please, may I have the photograph?”

He took the photo of Shawn from his pocket and held it out to her. “Do you recognize anyone here?”

“I have never been to this place,” Pim said. “But places like this are all the same. Someone here will have the information or they will know the person who does. It may cost money.”

He took a stack of bhat from his wallet and handed it to her. “You learned a lot at the Horny Monkey.”

“Yes,” she said, turning to leave. “Things I never wanted to know.”

 

***

 

The fourth beer was awful—as bad as the first three—but he drank it anyway, more out of habit than desire. What he really wanted was a cigar, not because he liked cigars, but it would mask the second-hand smoke from the low-grade Chinese cigarettes. He could ask at the bar but didn't feel like being sociable, and he could cut back to that all-night 7-Eleven across the street from the hotel, but that would mean leaving Pim alone in the bar. Not that she needed him. The lights were dim but he could see her in the far corner, sipping her can of Pepsi through a bent-neck straw. She leaned forward as she spoke to the man, and now and then he could make out her high-pitched giggle. The tip to the bartender got her introduced to the bouncer, and after fifteen-minutes of small talk and another tip, she was escorted past the men playing pool to the wobbly table near a propped-open fire exit where a potbellied man in rose-tinted aviator glasses sat with his back to the wall, chain smoking Thai cigarettes.

Mark knew the type. Middle-aged guys who saw themselves as players even though they were never in the game, guys who quoted Tony Soprano and dressed like they stepped out of Scarface, guys with Welsh-Irish surnames who said mingia and forgetaboutit like they grew up in Little Italy, who were too scared to cheat on their taxes but who hinted at back-alley deals and bodies in trunks. But they stayed on top of the real local mob scene, dropping names as if they were old compagnos, collecting scraps of information like they were baseball cards. And if you could sit through their bullshit, they'd tell you what they knew. As he watched the guy light up another cigarette, he hoped Pim knew the difference.

One thing Mark knew for certain, this guy, Robin's brother, Pim's husband, he didn't want to be found.

Maybe it went something like this. He's working at a dive shop in a true tropical paradise, screwing the occasional tourist girl out looking for an island romance and, despite what his sister thinks, keeping himself happily stoned. One day he meets a beautiful Thai girl, who, coincidentally, has access to prescription-level drugs. Whether or not he meant to, the next thing he knows he's married. It's fun for a month or two but soon it starts getting dull—he's making next to nothing, he's got a new wife to support, the strongest thing his dad-in-law's pharmacy carries is cold pills and his old life of quick sex and blissful highs tugs at him all night long. He knows the tourists, knows their appetites, and decides he can make some big money supplying their needs. But he needs a bankroll to make it happen, so he sees Jarin. Before he can pay him back, Mother Nature steps in. He sees a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to disappear, to start over somewhere else with no ties. And he takes it. The gangster holds his bride hostage, waiting for him to pay back what he owes. Maybe he's got the money, maybe it got washed away like the rest of the island, but in either case he's not coming back. It made perfect sense.

But at the same time it made no sense at all.

Pim had said that Jarin controlled Patong and some of that rang true—a hideout in the hills, four men to guard a little kid and an old man, the power to force a Thai bride into prostitution until the money was repaid. But how much would a loan shark have risked on a foreigner who worked at a dive shop? And even at Thai rates, holding three people captive for over a year had to be expensive. No, there was something going on, something besides money, and either Pim knew and wasn't saying, or there was a lot she didn't know about her husband.

And as Mark watched Pim laugh, bringing her hand up to cover her perfect smile, he thought about how little he knew her.

 

***

 

Mark was glad when he saw the third man step out from the shallow alcove of the fire exit and into the narrow alley.

It was long after midnight, and they had just left yet another nameless bar when Mark noticed they were being followed. The bar had been noisy, more rowdy than the others, mostly guys under twenty, slamming beers and punching each other in the shoulder, all piss and vinegar, sound and fury. See the one-eyed Chinaman, they had told Pim, not telling her which one of the four they had meant. But Mark hadn't even finished his beer when she told him it was time to go, leading the way out the door and onto the deserted street.