Bangkok 8 Part 3

Don't ask me when I first mastered the obvious. Here I am back on Sukhumvit in an Internet cafe, having tapped out "Bradley/jade" on the AltaVista search engine. The web site is called "Fatima and Bill's Jade Window" and consists of a black background with white text, a slowly turning jade artifact in an oval in the center of the screen. One William Bradley confesses to being owner of the site.

The artifact is a parabolic phallus which glows softly with a green-gold light, a perfectly balanced shape rising from crude rock, tapering elegantly until it reaches a smoothly polished head. There is nothing more to Bradley's web page except an e-mail address and a short text extolling the mystic qualities of jade. The same text appears in Thai, above the English.

It is the finest p.e.n.i.s I have ever seen, whether in stone or flesh. Now Bradley is beginning to intrigue me. Jade is the most spiritual of stones. Properly worked and polished, it gives a mystic glow which seems to come from its heart, an echo of nirvana. How would an American marine understand such a thing? True jade lovers tend to be Chinese.

It is easy to trace the Internet service provider, who is based on the other side of town, in Kaoshan Road, but it is three minutes to midnight on the day of Pichai's death and I need to drown myself in people. In the narrow soi soi outside the Internet cafe tarot readers sit cross-legged over the cards which their clients-invariably anxious girls who are not having much luck tonight-have drawn. I walk smartly past them to Nana Plaza, which is transformed. I cannot believe that Bradley was not a regular here, and who would forget a man like him? outside the Internet cafe tarot readers sit cross-legged over the cards which their clients-invariably anxious girls who are not having much luck tonight-have drawn. I walk smartly past them to Nana Plaza, which is transformed. I cannot believe that Bradley was not a regular here, and who would forget a man like him?

"Handsome man, I want to go with yooo," a girl in a black tank top calls as she leans over the palisade of the first bar, when I'm turning into the Nana courtyard from Soi 4. The plaza is flooded with white men and brown girls. Australians with guts so huge they look about to give birth stand grinning with arms around girls no bigger than their legs. Americans reminisce loudly about the night before, Germans keep saying ja, ja ja, ja and Dutch walk around like old hands. There are plenty of East Europeans and Russians, too; Siberia is directly north of my country, and ever since the fall of the USSR there has been a steady stream of men and women with pale skins and heavy vodka habits. The men come to buy and the women to sell. and Dutch walk around like old hands. There are plenty of East Europeans and Russians, too; Siberia is directly north of my country, and ever since the fall of the USSR there has been a steady stream of men and women with pale skins and heavy vodka habits. The men come to buy and the women to sell.

"I don't like work here, but papa me have car accident, must send money," a girl is saying to a tall, skinny Englishman. "Oh, that's awful," he says, as he pats her b.u.t.t.

The atmosphere is something between a festival and a hunting lodge. It's that time in the evening when the girls make an extra effort, before the 2 a.m. curfew when the cops close the place down, and the men sense the increase in intensity, like wildebeests sniffing lion. Everyone is drinking Singha or Kloster beer ice cold straight from the bottle, and wherever you look there are television monitors. Larry King's suspenders scream from a lot of them. Even the guy who sells fried gra.s.shoppers from a stall near the Buddha shrine owns a TV monitor on which he plays old Muhammad Ali fights and scenes from the siege of Stalingrad. Mostly, though, the screens show Manchester United playing Leeds to the boom of every kind of music from a thousand speakers.

I squeeze past some excited Italian men to climb the stairs to the second tier, which is a U-shaped collection of go-go bars looking down on the courtyard. As I pa.s.s each bar a curtain is whipped aside to show naked or near-naked girls dancing on elevated platforms, usually to Thai pop. Girls in bikinis try to drag me in, but I'm focused now on the Carousel, which is one of the biggest.

There are two revolving platforms, and all the girls dancing on them are naked. At one of the stand-up bars a farang farang is arguing with a girl in traditional Thai costume. is arguing with a girl in traditional Thai costume.

"I tell you I tired, no have power mek boom-boom."

The man c.o.c.ks an eye at me, then back to the girl. "And may I ask why you are so tired tonight?" The accent is Swiss German. With a twist of his head the man adds: "Why do I torture myself with such questions?"

I order a beer and watch the girl pull a sulky face. Gaunt and pet.i.te, about twenty-four, although to a farang farang she might seem sixteen. She catches my gaze and shrugs: she might seem sixteen. She catches my gaze and shrugs: farangs farangs never understand anything. never understand anything.

"She was probably looking after her baby all night," I offer. Bar girls are rarely exhausted by twenty minutes of s.e.x with a customer. The farang farang's eyes brighten.

"You have a child?" To me: "She never told me this."

Don't ask me why, but almost all the girls have one child, usually at age eighteen.

"Of course I have baby."

I watch the Swiss. Perhaps he took the girl out a couple of nights ago, made love to her casually-and finds himself haunted by her. His calculations so far have had to do with the practicalities of taking her back to Switzerland: the envy of his friends set against the disapproval of his mother; the pleasure of her body beside him every night against the social problem. And what about table manners? She probably sits cross-legged on most chairs and eats with a combination of fork, spoon and fingers.

As she turns the back of her head to me, I smile. Most of the girls are forever wrestling with their thick black hair. Often they tie it back in a ponytail, and a lot of them have taken to ripping the rings off condoms and using them as heavy-duty elastic bands, which is exactly what this girl has done; not a trick likely to win approval at the dinner tables of Zurich.

Now the Swiss has to factor in a child. But perhaps the child would not come with her?

"How old? Boy or girl?"

"Boy, him six." She beams proudly.

The Swiss looks at me with suspicion. "You know this girl?"

"Never seen her before." The Swiss is in his late thirties, balding and hurt. His face carries all the pain of a recent failure. Why has he come to Bangkok? To demonstrate continuing virility? For the simplicity of hired flesh? Now, within less than a week of landing, he is planning a relations.h.i.+p far more complicated than anything he's tried before.

"At least let me pay your bar fine and take you out to dinner," he tells the girl. "I want to talk to you. I want to know something."

"What you want to know?"

He stares at her, blinking self-consciously behind his thick spectacles. "I want to know why I've been thinking about you for the past forty-eight hours."

The girl brightens. "You think of me? Me too, I think of you." Not a bad performance. Nong would have made more of the moment, though, I reflect loyally. My mother still possesses the trick of projecting instant warmth. She would never have allowed herself to get as skinny as this girl, who looks like a yaa baa yaa baa fiend, nor would she have been so slow to see an opportunity for an overseas trip. fiend, nor would she have been so slow to see an opportunity for an overseas trip.

I give the man a congratulatory nod. You wanted her, now you've got her. What more could one possibly ask of life?

I take a photograph of Bradley out of my pocket and watch while the mamasan tells the Swiss how much he has to pay for the beer and the girl.

"It's strange the way they call it a bar fine, fine," he shares with me, "as if one is doing something wrong."

When the Swiss has paid up the mamasan takes his five-hundred-baht note and brushes all her girls with it, for luck. I nod to the mamasan to come over. She looks at the picture. Not a man one could easily forget: huge, black, shaved head, good bone structure, a pleasant mouth and a brilliant smile. American, not African. No, she's never seen him before, she's sure she would have remembered, but she's not been here all that long.

Turnover of labor is going to be a problem. Bradley was in Bangkok five years and had probably made his own private arrangements with women a long time ago. Men grow tired of Nana surprisingly quickly. Girls come and go.

I doggedly try all the bars, showing Bradley's picture to mostly older mamasans who look as if they've been around for a while. No one remembers Bradley and I'm tiring by the time I return to the Carousel. The huge bar is packed with the usual collection of Caucasian men and Asian women. On a TV monitor on a wall bracket two white women are serving a gigantic black phallus. On the big screen which covers one wall Manchester United are playing Real Madrid. Those girls who are not attending to a client are watching the football. There's a yell of female approval as Beckham scores from an impossible angle for the second time in five minutes.

All the men are watching the show on the largest revolving stage, where a woman in her early forties, naked except for a pair of cowboy boots, lies on the floor shooting darts from an aluminum tube she has inserted in her v.a.g.i.n.a. Customers hold up balloons for her to hit, and she rarely misses. Her name is Kat, a friend of my mother who lived with us for a while when I was young. When her act is over she makes a tour of the bar, still naked but holding a cowboy hat upside down for tips. The hat is full with twenty-, fifty- and hundred-baht notes by the time she reaches me. I toss a fifty into the hat.

"Can I talk to you backstage?"

She smiles. "I have another show at the Hollywood in twenty minutes. Come round to the changing room as soon as I've finished here."

I watch her finish her tour, which she completes with great dignity, as if she were doing a job of work as valid as brain surgery-or law enforcement. As soon as she has disappeared through the artistes' door, I follow, pus.h.i.+ng my way through a crowd of naked women who are waiting to go on. By the time I reach the changing room Kat is already dressed in jeans and T-s.h.i.+rt, a tiny pack on her back, that same professional expression on her face.

"How is your mother? I keep meaning to visit, but Phetchabun is so far away."

"Five hot hours in the bus. I don't go as often as I should myself." I take the photograph of Bradley out of my pocket and hold it up. I'm sure I see a flash of recognition before the inscrutable professional mask returns. "You know him?"

She purses her lips, shakes her head. "No, I don't think so. I'm sure I would have remembered a face like that."

I put the photo back in my pocket. "That's what everyone is saying, everywhere I go."

"What happened, did he murder someone?"

"The other way around."

A tensing of her facial muscles. "Ah! An American?"

"A marine."

"Then the FBI will be all over the city. You can sit back and relax, let them do all the work."

"They have to work in conjunction with me. They don't have any investigative rights in Thailand."

"You could have fooled me. I thought America bought the country years ago, it's just that no one's told us yet. Well, you must excuse me, Sonchai, fame and fortune await me at the Hollywood."

I follow her out of the dressing room and back down the corridor full of b.r.e.a.s.t.s and b.u.t.tocks. I continue to follow her out of the bar onto the terrace and call her name. She turns and I make a face. Her features harden, but she delves into her black backpack and takes out a card. Without looking at me she scribbles an address on the card and gives it to me. She turns to smile. "I live way out in the sticks these days-city rents were killing me." She walks quickly away from me.

The card is printed in Thai and English and reads: "Kat Walk Enterprises, Private Entertainment, Floor Shows, Cabaret with a Difference." There is a telephone number which carries the local prefix and is probably that of her agent, and her web page address. The address she has scribbled on the back is of a very distant suburb, hardly Krung Thep at all.

I walk along the balcony which looks over the courtyard. The bar on the corner is dedicated to transs.e.xuals, who like to make up in public at mirrors on a table on the balcony. I catch a glimpse of a long feminine neck, softly molded moon face, hard b.i.t.c.hy eyes as I slip past and down the stairs to the courtyard. There are so many half-naked bodies now, white male and brown female, it is difficult to move. "h.e.l.lo darlin', how are you? Are you lonely?" It is one of the transs.e.xuals, full-bosomed and pouting. I shake my head.

Lonely? An incurable state, unfortunately. I push past sweat-drenched T-s.h.i.+rts to the street, consider with weariness the task which lies ahead. Nana Plaza is only the seed at the center of the mango; there are thousands of bars in side sois sois and disused lots in every direction, particularly on the other side of Sukhumvit all the way to Asok, which is to say one stop on the sky train: about five acres of brown flesh for rent to a similar quant.i.ty of white. East meets West. How can I disapprove when I owe my existence to this conjunction? and disused lots in every direction, particularly on the other side of Sukhumvit all the way to Asok, which is to say one stop on the sky train: about five acres of brown flesh for rent to a similar quant.i.ty of white. East meets West. How can I disapprove when I owe my existence to this conjunction?

It is forty-one minutes past 1 a.m., hot, muggy. With resignation I take one of the yaa baa yaa baa pills from my pocket. I've lost touch with the market, but as far as I can remember the blue pills tend to be laced with heroin and give a pleasant, opiated high. The crimson ones are mixed with fertilizer and produce a lot of energy at the expense of making you more than a little crazy, with a poisonous hangover the next day. pills from my pocket. I've lost touch with the market, but as far as I can remember the blue pills tend to be laced with heroin and give a pleasant, opiated high. The crimson ones are mixed with fertilizer and produce a lot of energy at the expense of making you more than a little crazy, with a poisonous hangover the next day.

I return to the plaza to order a bottle of Singha beer, which I use to swallow the pill. It's crimson. There's a lot of night left.

12.

They came from the north and the south, the east and the west. Krung Thep was not only the biggest city, until recently it was the only modern city we had. They came from the plains and the hills. Most were ethnic Thai but many were tribespeople from the north, Muslims from the south, Khmer who sneaked over from Cambodia, and plenty were technically Burmese who lived on the border and never paid it any mind. They were part of the greatest diaspora in history, the migration of half of Asia from country to town, and it was happening at an accelerated speed during the last third of the twentieth century. Men with iron muscles and the dogged heroism of unmechanized agricultural labor, women with bodies ravaged by continual pregnancies, they possessed in full measure all the guts, all the enthusiasm, all the naivete, all the hope, all the desperation necessary to make it in the big city. The only thing they left out of account was time, of which they knew very little apart from the rhythms of nature. The s.a.d.i.s.tic vivisection of life into hours, minutes, seconds was one of the few hards.h.i.+ps never inflicted by the soil. Deadlines, especially, were the source of a new kind of anxiety. Stress? Its urban version was strange, alien, insidious and something they had no way of dealing with. Yaa baa Yaa baa was a poison whose time had come. was a poison whose time had come.

The fis.h.i.+ng industry was the first to succ.u.mb. No longer a question of bringing fish to predawn markets for people to take home and cook, these days the fight to net the fish was only the first step in a semi-industrial process that required critical timing to ice it, pack it, freight it; the most lucrative fish were those kept alive and flown to restaurants in j.a.pan and Hong Kong, Vancouver and San Francisco. The job of scaling fish for local restaurants was another of those peculiarly stressful tasks which had to be completed between 1 and 5 a.m., just when your body rhythms told you it was time to sleep. The job couldn't be done without yaa baa yaa baa.

Truck drivers were next. The brave new world required nonstop driving the length and breadth of the country, with Bangkok as a hub, and sometimes interminable journeys down south, over the border and down through Malaysia as far as Kuala Lumpur-a journey of more than a thousand miles. n.o.body thought of doing it without yaa baa yaa baa. Construction workers, too, felt the call. Hard work was not the problem, it was the pressure, the deadlines, the relentless weight of money that pressed on all projects, the night work, the dangers at high levels, welding with gas at night on the thirtieth floor of some new office or luxury apartment building. Safety regulations were primitive and not well enforced, you had to stay awake to stay alive.

Other industries followed. Bar girls whose job it was to dance from 8 p.m. into the small hours of the morning, policemen on night duty, students needing to stay awake for exams-this stress was alien to the Thai way, and required chemical treatment.

Now progress took the form of inexplicable homicides. In Krung Thep a group of construction workers mutilated pa.s.sersby in a rabid slas.h.i.+ng spree. In the northeast an addicted monk raped and killed a tourist. Truck drivers drove ten-wheelers into ditches, pedestrians and each other.

The official figure is about a million addicted to the drug, but I guess the reality to be double that. Many employers openly admit they have to purchase yaa baa yaa baa at wholesale prices in order to distribute it to their workforces, who could not afford the retail price and could not work without it. at wholesale prices in order to distribute it to their workforces, who could not afford the retail price and could not work without it.

Yaa baa means "mad drug" and refers to methamphetamine produced from ephedrine. It hits the blood in a rush and shoots into the brain stem. When it is smoked its effect is even more powerful-often violent. means "mad drug" and refers to methamphetamine produced from ephedrine. It hits the blood in a rush and shoots into the brain stem. When it is smoked its effect is even more powerful-often violent.

Yaa baa is much easier to produce than heroin, an amateur can learn the chemistry in an hour. In a day he can use a pill compress to produce a hundred thousand pills, usually from a mobile factory. All he needs is the raw ephedrine, which is usually smuggled in from Laos, or Burma, or Cambodia. Do you have a private army perpetually in need of a war chest? Khun Sha does, lord of the United Wa. So does the Red Wa, so does the official Burmese army itself, come to that. Well, here's what you do. You build a is much easier to produce than heroin, an amateur can learn the chemistry in an hour. In a day he can use a pill compress to produce a hundred thousand pills, usually from a mobile factory. All he needs is the raw ephedrine, which is usually smuggled in from Laos, or Burma, or Cambodia. Do you have a private army perpetually in need of a war chest? Khun Sha does, lord of the United Wa. So does the Red Wa, so does the official Burmese army itself, come to that. Well, here's what you do. You build a yaa baa yaa baa factory right on the Thai border, guard it with your troops, most of whom are already addicted to the drug, staff it with uneducated peasants and local tribespeople to pull the handles and press the b.u.t.tons, and-here is the delicate part-find the right connection in Thailand to take care of the distribution. factory right on the Thai border, guard it with your troops, most of whom are already addicted to the drug, staff it with uneducated peasants and local tribespeople to pull the handles and press the b.u.t.tons, and-here is the delicate part-find the right connection in Thailand to take care of the distribution.

Which explains why I am dancing in a club in Pat Pong at 3:29 a.m.

This is the most venerable of our red-light districts, where my mother worked most of the bars at one time or another, changing employment regularly according to her luck in finding customers, her relations.h.i.+p with the boss and the mamasan, or simply out of boredom. This is home, which I suppose is why I've come for comfort, as I used to as a kid. Often I would come in the early evening before she changed into her hideous bar-girl costumes (I loved her most in blue jeans and T-s.h.i.+rt, she looked so young and s.e.xy). Or sometimes in the early hours of the morning when I'd been unable to sleep, because of the ghosts. Then I would take a motorcycle taxi all the way from home, racing through the night. If Nong was busy with a customer, the mamasan would find me a place to sit, some food and a beer.

The police shut down the market, bars and clubs an hour and a half ago, but the street knows me from the old days. Somehow they already know that Pichai is dead and it's like being that kid all over again. I'm mothered by a hundred wh.o.r.es. There is a price to pay, though. I have to dance.

"Sonchai, Sonchai, Sonchai." They clap steadily, insistently, and motion at the stage with their chins. This is what I used to do, to earn my supper. Day after day at home I watched my mother practicing her erotic b.u.m-thrusts and t.i.t-wobbles to the disco music of her time, and she never realized how well I'd learned until she came in one night from a session with a client to see me all alone up on the stage, a twelve-year-old boy-wh.o.r.e dancing for life. They clap steadily, insistently, and motion at the stage with their chins. This is what I used to do, to earn my supper. Day after day at home I watched my mother practicing her erotic b.u.m-thrusts and t.i.t-wobbles to the disco music of her time, and she never realized how well I'd learned until she came in one night from a session with a client to see me all alone up on the stage, a twelve-year-old boy-wh.o.r.e dancing for life.

I'm pretty far gone, of course. The yaa baa yaa baa has fried my brains, and on top there has been beer and ganja. The mamasan turns the music up real loud and I'm dancing a blue streak. Dancing like a tart. Dancing like Nong the G.o.ddess, Nong the wh.o.r.e. I'm better than Jagger in his prime, better than Travolta, maybe even better than Nong. The mamasan plays Tina Turner's "The Best" on the sound system and everyone screams, has fried my brains, and on top there has been beer and ganja. The mamasan turns the music up real loud and I'm dancing a blue streak. Dancing like a tart. Dancing like Nong the G.o.ddess, Nong the wh.o.r.e. I'm better than Jagger in his prime, better than Travolta, maybe even better than Nong. The mamasan plays Tina Turner's "The Best" on the sound system and everyone screams, "Sonchai, Sonchai, Sonchai . . ." "Sonchai, Sonchai, Sonchai . . ." The girls, mostly dressed in jeans and T-s.h.i.+rts and ready to go home, roar and clap me on and on into the oblivion I've been searching for all night. The girls, mostly dressed in jeans and T-s.h.i.+rts and ready to go home, roar and clap me on and on into the oblivion I've been searching for all night.

I call you, I need you, my heart's on fire You come to me, come to me wild and wired Give me a lifetime of promises and a world of dreams Speak the language of love like you know what it means Mmm, it can't be wrong Take my heart and make it strong You're simply the best, better than all the rest . . .

Pichai.

n.o.body remembers Bradley, or if they do I don't remember them remembering. I am very very stoned.

13.

Needless to say, the yaa baa yaa baa was a serious failure and I find myself in Kaoshan Road at about eight-thirty the next day, not having slept at all. I am sitting in a cafe opposite the offices of the Internet server, drinking black coffee, while the kaleidoscopic night replays in my head. I seem to remember talking to five hundred women, none of whom remembered Bradley. I remember my dancing in Pat Pong with extreme embarra.s.sment. Now, with the sun already hot, it is as if the night were repeating itself. The street is filling with white-skinned foreigners. was a serious failure and I find myself in Kaoshan Road at about eight-thirty the next day, not having slept at all. I am sitting in a cafe opposite the offices of the Internet server, drinking black coffee, while the kaleidoscopic night replays in my head. I seem to remember talking to five hundred women, none of whom remembered Bradley. I remember my dancing in Pat Pong with extreme embarra.s.sment. Now, with the sun already hot, it is as if the night were repeating itself. The street is filling with white-skinned foreigners.

This is a different scene from Sukhumvit. Indeed, the place is so bizarre it is hardly Krung Thep at all. Thais themselves come here as tourists, to gawk and judge.

Here the farangs farangs are often in couples, girls and boys, far younger than the clientele of places like Nana Plaza, kids on their so-called gap year between school and university, or university and reality. are often in couples, girls and boys, far younger than the clientele of places like Nana Plaza, kids on their so-called gap year between school and university, or university and reality.

Kaoshan offers the cheapest accommodation in the city, dormitory beds for a few dollars a night in conditions even I would find squalid. Here the feeling of party-party-party never dies, not even in early morning. The street is lined with stalls selling pirated DVDs, videos and CDs, and travel guides to Southeast Asia, cooked-food stalls, junk stalls, sandal stalls, T-s.h.i.+rt stalls. Between the stalls and the cafes there is hardly room to walk; tourists with ma.s.sive backpacks turn and twist to pa.s.s, having just arrived on some long-haul flight from Europe or America, in search of the very cheapest accommodation, hoping to preserve their funds for the duration of their vacation, perhaps as long as a year. Remember the Chinatown scenes in Blade Runner Blade Runner? My people quickly learned how to produce Balinese masks, Cambodian sculptures, puppets from Burma, batik from Indonesia-even Australian didgeridoos. You can change money, have your body pierced, play bongo drums, watch a video or check your e-mail. It is a long way from Thailand.

A black man looking for a low profile would be smart to choose Kaoshan Road.

Now a Thai arrives on a motorbike to open the offices of the Internet server. I give him a few minutes before crossing the street.

This man is in his early thirties, clearly one of that industrious, switched-on new generation of Thais who have seen the opportunity offered by the Internet technology. He gives me a swift glance and knows immediately I am a cop. I show the photograph of Bradley.

The man recognizes him immediately and leads upstairs to where his machines sit on trestle tables and buzz and whir from all sides of the room. Anyone renting an Internet service is legally obliged to fill in a form issued by the government under the Telecommunications Act, and the man takes a file out from one of the filing cabinets and quickly finds Bradley's form. The form is printed only in Thai script, and most of the information supplied by Bradley is also in Thai.

"You helped him fill in the form?"

"No. He took it away and brought it back like this."

"Did he speak Thai?"

"Only a little. I don't think he could write in Thai."

"Ever see anyone with him?"

"He only came to the shop twice, once to collect the form, once to bring it back. He was alone both times." The man hesitates. I encourage him with a nod. "I think I saw him once, though, walking down the street. He was hard to miss. He was with a woman." I nod again. "Well, I mean, quite a woman. At first I thought she was African American like him, then I saw she had eyes like us, and her skin was more brown than black and her hair was basically straight, even though she'd frizzed it out a bit. Tall, much taller than most Thais, but not as tall as him of course. She came up to his shoulder." The man grins. "I came up to his rib cage."

"What was her hair like?"

"Dyed different colors, green, orange, you know? But well done, the two of them sauntering down the street was like a fas.h.i.+on show. She was incredibly s.e.xy, like something out of a film. Everyone turned their heads, I think people wondered if two film stars had arrived from the United States. She looked like she was enjoying the attention."

"And him?"

"I think he was a serious guy. He looked like a serious American, you know? She looked more frivolous. But as I say, I only saw them once, and from a distance, it might not even have been him. I think it was because there aren't many like that in Krung Thep."

This is my first real lead and I want to reward this man. I copy down Bradley's address as it is written in Thai on the form and say: "Listen, sooner or later some agents from the FBI will come here asking to see this form and asking the kind of questions I just asked."

"So?"

"They have no investigative powers here. You're not obliged to tell them anything."