Chapter Eighteen
Walker, formerly of Belfast and his Nepalese sidekick hailed the first cab they saw on the downstairs level at Suwannapumi Airport. They’d limped into Bangkok from Manila on Kuwait Airlines, the other two syndicate men lay dead in the morgue back in Manila. The first priority was to get decent medical treatment for the hole in his arm -- fate -- the bite had probably saved the Gurkha’s life; had he been able-bodied it would have been him on the ground that day to catch a rifle slug.
Not right. Suspicions drifted from Anna; hate her guts as he did there was no way she could’ve taken out his guys like that without help. Another group of players had come onto the field but who were they?
Selling war-toys is always an evil business, sometimes worse than drugs. At least the Liberation Tigers had a clear cut objective. Things had become much trickier since the conflict ended. The syndicate were dealing with criminals local and abroad and had contact with rebels in the Philippines, groups in Indonesia and they’d shipped a container of illegal stuff as far afield as Japan. Top dollar, too… plenty of toes to tread on yet the boss supposedly had the authorities on side. Face it…we’ve all made a fortune but we’ve made even more enemies.
Walker patted his pocket, still had that hand-addressed envelope he got off Hatfield’s body. Bitch! An account printout. Six million; US. Their money, now in Hatfield’s name. And now the prick was dead. Sending the damn thing snail-mail…brilliant! How many other letters; how much ‘readies’ had been taken? Bitch! Meant to launder it, not steal it all. Told them, time and again, warned everybody. Don’t trust ‘em.
He hadn’t broken the news about the accounts yet, he had to see the others face to face. He switched on his cell once the green and yellow meter-taxi had cleared the ramp. They’d heard all about the rout in Manila.
“Reggie, its Walker. We just got in. Where are you, mate?” he snarled.
The cabbie caught the tone of voice and shot a look in the rear-view at his passengers.
“I’m heading up right now. We’ll be up soon. We gotta talk. There’s been a little problem…speak soon.” He leaned over the seat and spoke to the driver in broken Thai: “Pakchong, mate. That’s it; take a right after the next off-ramp.”
Rough Thai…rude and crude…picked up in the bars. Not impressed. The cabbie turned and faced the big guy and the man next to him. Traditionally it was foreigners who were wary of Bangkok taxis but on this night it the driver’s turn; he was nervous about the two fares seated behind him. They looked downright evil, particularly the little swarthy guy with big shoulders and no expression at all. Across the seat the blonde one reached and tucked seven thousand Baht into the man’s pocket. The cabbie tried to wriggle away from the big paw-like hand.
“Pakchong, I sez. Got ears, mate? Surely that’ll cover it…know what I mean, mate? Now step on it!”
The driver took his cell phone, an old 3310 from the console and held it up, looking back again. “I call the wife, okay?” He had a nervous look on his face. He cast his mind to the wad of cash that had just landed in his shirt pocket and tucked it further in.
“I don’t care who you call, mate, just drive.”
The driver would have a long night ahead of him. He was philosophical though: Life could be worse, it wasn’t every day a fare like that dropped out of the sky, paid up front with no haggling at all.
The cash felt like a warm pad in the front of his shirt, it gave the driver some comfort at least. He flicked his eyes in the mirror one more time; the two passengers were slumped back and silent. They only spoke again when the taxi had entered the township, an hour after midnight.
Home! We’ve landed. My land…our land. She heaved a sigh of relief as she stepped out into the tropical darkness, four am. That nasal, aspirated chatter around her, the signs and vehicle registration plates in her language. Somewhere normal at last. Home, every single face nearby, her people and the foreigners shared the same emotions. Everybody who was here on this night felt the same. Not a soul who entered the Kingdom was unhappy to be there.
The attaché from KL walked straight back in and caught a return flight to Malaysia. A government car waited, ready to whisk her away to her apartment in the city. She longed for sleep; she felt like she could sleep for days… she deserved it. Although the nightmares would come, although the struggle would continue, at least she was home.
There he lay. Special Agent Mike Jackson. Out cold. He’d let the Bureau down.
They hovered above him, the western man they had taken or rather he was the one who had taken them to the room…Nattaya Coyote and her friend who danced with her every night at the nightclub. Jackson out on his back, the moist towel falling away from him. Nat stood and shivered. Looked angelic, didn’t even snore. Mouth slightly open. The dope crushed up worked a treat with the sweet local rum.
‘The Ativan Express’. An express-train to twenty hours unconscious, out like a light.
“Double check your stuff and run the shower. Wait for me outside the door,” whispered Nat. Her eyes went blank as her friend eased the door shut behind her. She rifled the stranger’s trouser pockets then took the camcorder -- he’d insisted on filming the entire thing. She paused once more, listening to the water in the moldy shower stall.
“Soong, soong…soong” (stand tall, persevere).
Nattaya Coyote crouched down and sat, her knees out front and legs tucked under, like in prayer, she’d dropped her clothes to one corner of the squalid room…she was alone now. Tattoos, they ran across her back, down her arms and up the sides of her legs. Not really a dragon, not a python nor a snake, a mystical serpent-creature crawled from her butt and finished at the nape of her neck. A sacred Buddhist prayer on her left shoulder and an eagle across her front, the claws covering up a caesarian scar. Sprays of colored flowers down one leg and fish chasing one another; head to tail up the other leg. A tiny inscription on her right little finger of a French name; some long-lost benefactor she once had.
‘Laurent’…but he drank himself to death by the Mekong River and the money-tree withered and died. Wife back in Calais took it all. Never knew he had a wife! Never said a thing; no more ‘take-care-Nattaya’. Bad luck, Nat.
She reached into her handbag. In it were her worldly possessions: passport, an e-ticket, ATM cards and some cash. All she would need; all she would take along with the camcorder and his ID. And in the handbag was a meat cleaver, a heavy one at two pounds -- Damascus steel and razor sharp -- long as her arm. Her favorite for cutting garlic and pork; chicken-mince salad.
The money had gone into their accounts that morning. They’d split it four ways…no backing out now.
She held the chopper in her hand and looked at him one last time, and then she closed her eyes, thought about her life. About her young ones up in the rice plains, her eldest wanted to be a police officer one day and the younger one who was so clever…the brightest in the school, wanted to be a nurse and help people when she grew up.
A nurse…more like a doctor, she was clever enough.
She thought of the things she had to pay, the money sent religiously every month to her sister who cared for her daughters. Chinese loan sharks who arrived every month to collect the money her common law husband owed, the gambling debts he left behind when he’d deserted her right after the youngest one’s birth.
She thought of the neighbor’s son who raped her when she was just thirteen and she thought of her stepfather who hit her right up until the day he died…and the family that only cared enough to sell her into a sham-marriage at age fourteen to some guy twice her age who resented the cost and beat her and drank moonshine just like her stepfather did.
Bride price, that’s what the family got for her, less than a grand in dollars.
Nattaya gritted her teeth. She was trembling. The adrenaline was going now. Surging like a flood.
She thought of the never-ending
nights on the stage at that go-go place where she danced for eight hours straight and the pain she felt in her knees and ankles. Aching, and lingering cramps that only subsided when she slept. Headaches from the flashing lights and techno beats, her ears ringing and tinnitus that got worse with every year she grew older. Thirty six years old.
My two girls. When I come home, they run to me. Happy to see me. Even the dog barks at me, the neighbors laugh at me, they whisper, they point. Ha! But I have money; they do not. My two daughters, they have to grow up and take care of me -- their Mama. I want them to be good. I want them to work in a good job.
My two girls…one day they’ll grow up and turn out just like me!!
And Nattaya Coyote was staring at a black vortex of a wasted life. There was nothing at the end. A wave of pure terror shot up her spine. She shook like a mild convulsion and her teeth made a grinding sound. Then she blacked out. That tiny little brain seized up like a dry motor on a summer’s day. She had a big heart though, to make up…pumping one-eighty beats per minute tonight.
When she came to the first sensation she felt was a clammy wet sensation. A smell like fresh meat. All over her skin and a salty taste on her lips. The man, the mark from the embassy, was no longer before her, at least not in human form. In front of her a once-in-a-lifetime scene, like one of those dreadful accidents in a metal workshop, like a blast in a marketplace, into a cage and mauled by a tiger….hair, blood, fingers and pieces of flesh; flung all over the room. More blood than a slaughterhouse. Things Anna had said: cold water and lots of it then bleach in the shower, don’t touch anything and leave the murder weapon there once it had been wiped down. Plastic bags covering her bare feet until out of the seedy room, then shoes only when she got outside. Plastic bags over the hands; no contact with anything.
Nat crawled into the shower; she stayed there for ages until the last of the blood had washed from her body. She scrubbed her body for dear life; if she scrubbed much harder the tramp-stamp-tattoos would come off. She felt sick but kept it down; in any case she hadn’t eaten anything all day.
Up the lane, a waiting taxi sat in the night. It was a minivan and her three Thai friends sat in there. Nattaya crept up to the side of the van; she got in and slid the door shut. The air-con was icy; the engine had been idling and the taxi waiting the last ten minutes since collecting the other two. None of the coyote gang would be reporting for duty that night. Never going back again, they were headed home.
“Manila International, right?” The minivan driver turned around and faced the women. “Manila Airport, you said? Four thousand pesos please ladies. Two-way trip for me…” He looked at each of them in turn. “You pay now, please…”
The one nearest to him was in no mood for haggling, she passed the cash over; the cabbie counted it and stuffed it into the console before easing away from the curb.
“Nat! Okay or not?” Her dancing partner-in-crime, the one who had stayed outside the door, gingerly touched her cousin’s forearm.
Nattaya pushed it away. “Please don’t,” she whispered.
Tonight she was free. They all were; the coyote girls. But Assassin-Coyote and friends had paid the price to purchase their lives back. The blood on her tattooed skin washed away in the cold water but the stains on her conscience would last. Her soul remained trapped in the upstairs room with Jackson, what was left of him.
Freedom! Sometimes you had to sell something. Sell your body, your heart. Shut your eyes and think of home. Shut your eyes and think of your life. Pay for it in the next one.
The old stadium: Bangkok, every Friday night. The crowd leapt to its feet and roared, the old timber stalls shook and the roof lifted. In the front row she sat, the fighter went down right before her. Hard…she felt the shock from where she sat.
The one in the blue satin didn’t get up. She’d bet on red. The referee counted to ten…full KO. Boxing, it was the national sport. When the cheers died down she inched out of the ringside seat. Best seat in the house, cost a packet. No matter, she turned and found the guy, that bookmaker. Thirty-nine thousand Baht, she always picked the winners, or most of the time. The bookie hated her, but he paid up. Never refused a wager from her, always a challenge…she knew the fight game as good as any. She’d been away for ages.
Pakdee squeezed past the ringside seats, found him and got the winnings. Made it to the exit then outside, found her black BMW and jumped in -- the one with twenty-four carat plate on the grill. Sat a while, she was elated. No idea why, she felt high…on a winner.
Just like the boxer in red.