For the Dead (35 page)

“On the pad,” Tran says.

“Getting paid for odds and ends, for keeping his mouth shut. Maybe twenty thousand, thirty thousand baht at a time. Not often, just enough to keep him hoping for more. So, yeah, he was involved. Was he running it? No.”

“You’re certain.”

“I’d bet the farm on it.”

“And how big is your farm?”

“Not very big. But it’s the only one I’ve got.”

Tran nods. “That’s the better question, isn’t it? Not how much the other person will lose, but how much he’ll have left.” He steps in front of the high-backed chair behind the desk and sits. “In order for me to allow you to move ahead with this—”

Rafferty says, “Excuse me?”

“Your
plan
, whatever it is, undoubtedly calls for my offering your little flock a sanctuary. It presumably includes the continuing participation of Captain Nguyen.”

“It certainly does.” Rafferty ignores Nguyen’s warning glance. “And they’re not my little flock, beyond my wife and child, and I’ve taken care of
them
without your help in the past.”

“Well, let’s try not to put you in that position again. If I’m going to be involved, I need to know two things: first that we’re not shielding an embarrassing villain; and second, that you—the two of you—are after the right man. Ton has business interests in Vietnam, and it would be counterproductive to disrupt them for no good reason.”

“We’ll know absolutely by the end of the day,” Nguyen says.
“And until we’re completely certain, we won’t do anything that would have a permanent effect.”

Rafferty says, “He’s the guy.”

Tran looks at him long enough to memorize him. “This isn’t theoretical,” he says. “We’ve received a formal request to hand Colonel Thanom to the Bangkok police, and I can only stall them for so long. And, relative to the size of your farm, I need to know whether Ton will still have the resources to cause problems when you’re done with him.”

Nguyen says, “We’re going to strip him stark naked and flay him alive in public.”

Tran pulls the corners of his mouth together, perhaps at the imagery, and says to Rafferty, “And you?”

“Exactly what
he
said,” Rafferty says. “But he forgot the salt.”

“So I stall,” Tran says. “Thank you. That’ll be all.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Rafferty says, “How will you stall?”

“I’ll tell them that we’ve taken their request under consideration.” He blinks and pauses, and Rafferty has the sense that he’s reviewing what he’s just said to confirm that it’s the right course of action. He gives himself a tight, stiff-necked nod. “That will hold them a few hours.”

“We need more than a few—”

“And when they come back to us,” Tran says, without raising his voice, “we’ll inform them that one more importunate query will lead us to issue a public statement that Colonel Thanom sought refuge here voluntarily, and that we believe that a situation involving certain elements within his department poses a threat to the sovereignty of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the personal safety of its diplomatic representatives and their families.”

Rafferty starts to speak, but Tran raises a hand. “And bearing in mind the long friendship between our respective countries, et cetera, et cetera, we’ll promise to expedite our investigation of the particulars of the case—particulars, I have to say, just between us,” he says, looking at Nguyen, “that are in scarce supply. And that
we’ll act according to our discoveries. Oh, and it’s also come to our attention that those same certain elements within the police department are holding Colonel Thanom’s wife without a legal basis, and we will be petitioning for her release.” He gives Rafferty the ghost’s smile again.

Rafferty says, “My, my.”

“As solid as that sounds,” Tran says, “it’ll have holes worn in it twenty-four hours from now. So
settle
it; make absolutely certain you’ve got your man and that you can take him all the way down. In no more time than that.”

“Yes, sir,” Nguyen says. “We will.”

“You understand, Colonel, you wouldn’t even have twenty-four hours if it weren’t for the assault on your family.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And now,” Tran says, “if it’s all right with you, Mr. Rafferty, that’ll be all.”

“We’ll just let ourselves out,” Rafferty says, and when they leave the room, he’s in the lead. They pass the perfectly groomed woman in the outer office without a detour to get their cups. In the hallway, Rafferty stops when Nguyen touches his arm. Before Nguyen can speak, Rafferty says, “We’ll be certain within twenty-four hours?”

Nguyen says, “The salt?”

“It seemed like a colorful touch.”

Nguyen nods and then breaks into a smile. “You must have Vietnamese blood,” he says.

“Filipino,” Rafferty says, “but thanks for the compliment.”

“So it’s time at last,” Nguyen says. It’s the kind of smile, a tight-edged baring of the teeth, that probably gives his enemies the night sweats. “Twenty-four hours, and not a minute more. What was that phrase you used? From some song?”

“Aim and ignite,” Rafferty says.

Nguyen says, “If not now, when?”

T
HE RESTAURANT BUILDING
used to be a bank, complete with the requisite picture window, and they get the number-one table, dead-center behind the big pane of glass. They get a hard, hot slab of morning sun, yellow as butter, through the window. They get service that seems to begin before they walk in: a maître d’ pulling the door open when they’re still several steps away, complimentary appetizers. They get offered specials that are, they’re assured, available only to certain valued patrons. They get to watch a bottle of champagne—a gift of the house—be borne toward them in a sweating bucket from the open bank vault.

They get a beefy man in a red baseball cap passing the window and glancing in at them. Two minutes later they get the same beefy man going the other way, wearing a yellow cap.

And, ten minutes after they sit down, they get James Kalmenson, in whose name the reservation was made: a fiftyish, balding, very closely shaved, pink-faced man whose broad jowls and tiny mouth give him a permanent expression of petulance and who has no obvious shortage of self-regard. The moment he walks in, the reason the entire staff is on its knees to them becomes apparent.

Kalmenson is a finger-snapper, a man who points at people across the room and crooks a finger when he wants them, a man who indulges in the kind of imperious post-colonial behavior that
makes Rafferty feel apologetic for being a
farang
. Within a moment after sitting down, Kalmenson refers to the Thais as “these people” and makes it clear that he holds each and every one of them personally responsible for the sorry mess the country is in.

“Compared to what other country?” Rafferty says, leaning across Nguyen, but Nguyen steps on Rafferty’s foot and agrees that the Thais certainly seem more interested in having a good time than in running a tight ship, and Kalmenson takes a corrective stance, because, Rafferty can see, Kalmenson takes a corrective stance on everything.

“Not your boy Ton,” he says. “Not the boy you’re here to talk about. The exception that proves the rule and so forth.” He sips his red wine, the second bottle brought to the table after he waved the first one off. “Of course, he’s mostly Chinese, all the good ones are, but my Lord, he’s a pistol. He could make it in the States.”

He holds up the wine glass and tilts it, sighting through it, and Rafferty bets himself one hundred and seventy million baht that Kalmenson will say something about
legs
, and he says, “Nice legs. It’s a little thin on the tongue, but got a nice viscosity to it.” To Nguyen, he says, “Ton was the runt of the litter, of course, third son and all. Real Medici family: oldest brother in government, second in the Army, Ton in police, all of them using their positions to shovel whatever business they can into the family vault. Not much fondness among them. You’re broadening your relationship with him?”

“We’re considering modifying it,” Nguyen says. “We’re beginning to see him in a new light.”

“He’s quite the emerging boy,” Kalmenson says. “You could do worse. You’ll keep me abreast of matters as they progress.”

“You’ll learn what we learn,” Nguyen says.

“Tit for tat.” Kalmenson looks up, irritated, as a shadow falls on the table, but when he sees the menus in the waiter’s hand he smiles.

He demands and gets the list of specials, orders something that
there are only two servings of—it could be pheasant feet, Rafferty thinks, and he’d still order it—and strongly recommends something to each of them. Nguyen accepts his suggestion, and Rafferty says to the waiter, “Whatever you’d order.”

“Give me an overview,” Nguyen says. “The family business as it stands now.”

“Not a lot of change in the past year. Overall, they’re in construction—roads
and
buildings—and communications: they control one of the not-quite-top cellular networks. They’re in rice milling and export, they’re massive landlords—probably control several million square meters of business, residence, and factory space in Bangkok alone.”

He pulls another roll out of the bread basket. “But the current jewel in the crown,” he says, “is all Ton’s: the Northeast Farmers’ Trust.” Rafferty’s ears ring with the name and he sees Chalee’s drawing of her sister as Kalmenson pours his third glass of red wine. “I told you, he’s already got milling operations and rice export networks, and he’s got some influence on price-setting. He controls about fifteen percent of the national crop, worth I can’t even guess how much. So tell me, what’s the pebble in the rice bag?”

Nguyen says, “Farmers.”

“You Viets,” Kalmenson says approvingly. “You’ve got the instinct. All that Chinese blood.”

Rafferty says, his voice sharp in his ears, “What
about
the farmers?”

“Who needs them?” Kalmenson makes an expansive sweeping gesture with the back of his hand, just missing his wine glass. “They’re a mess. They have too many kids, so farms that once were decent size have been carved into dozens of tiny plots, all brothers and fathers and cousins, squabbling night and day. A nightmare to deal with. So here’s the deal. These people are already living at subsistence level, right?”

Rafferty, whose wife’s bankrupt farmer father tried to sell her into the sex trade, swallows and says, “Right.”

“It’s a classic squeeze. As a miller, you lower the price you pay for their unmilled rice, and you increase the price they pay for the milled rice they eat. Say they’re making two hundred baht per kilo for unmilled rice, but they’re spending three for the rice they live on. And you restrict the kind of seed they use and double the price. The farmers are in a deeper hole every year. Beauty, huh?” He pulls the bread basket over to him, peeks in, then raises his hand to catch a waiter’s eye and points at the basket.

“Typical,” he says as the waiter takes the basket. “So, so, so—right, right—he sets up the Northeast Farmers’ Trust, Ton does, a little bank with no purpose except to lend money to farmers who aren’t making it. No interest, just a balloon payment at the end of the year. And you map the village, mark out the pieces each family uses, and when it comes time to collect and they can’t pay, you foreclose. The first ones you take are the ones around the perimeters, create a wall around as many paddies as you can. Deny people the right to cross your paddies to get to theirs. Put rural cops—here’s where being an opera cop, with that fancy uniform, pays off—to enforce the
no trespassing
edict.”

Rafferty says, “What happens to the families who get foreclosed on?”

“He keeps them on at first, pays them a little to work their old land. But when you’ve got ten or fifteen plots, you give all but one or two of the families the old heave-ho and leave the others in charge. Then, when you’ve made it really difficult for people to get across your land to their family plot—good one,
family plot
, because that’s what it turns out to be—you offer the others sixty cents on the dollar to sell. Pretty soon, you own a village. Do it often enough, and you’ll own the rice business from seed to feed and everything in between. And he does. About fifteen percent, like I said.”

Rafferty’s throat feels like there’s an iron band being tightened around it. He says, “What a guy.”

“So if you’re thinking of doing new deals with him,” Kalmenson says to Nguyen, “jump at it. Just keep your hand on your wallet.”

“All this sounds very rosy,” Nguyen says. “But tell me. Is there any reason he might be feeling some pressure?”

Kalmenson’s expression, as he regards Nguyen, goes remote. “Why do you ask?”

Nguyen pours wine into Kalmenson’s glass and offers some to Poke, who shakes his head. He pours a bit into his own glass. “I have a preference for choosing successful people as my—I mean, my country’s—partners. But I also want to know that my partner has some real skin in the game. I want to know that the business will matter to him in the long run, because that’s how I think, long run. He’s the youngest son, and he’s obviously doing well. But he’s got older brothers who can probably overrule him. How do I know he’ll still have his shoulder to the wheel in, say, five years?”

Kalmenson eyes him blankly for a moment and says, “Where’s the food?’

Nguyen says, “Coming,” and settles comfortably in his chair.

“What you want,” Kalmenson says, rubbing his hands together, “this new topic, that’s a little beyond just information. It’s judgment. That makes it more in the nature of a personal consultation.”

“How much?”

Kalmenson purses the little mouth in thought. “A thousand, American.”

“Do you have that much on you, Poke?”

Poke says, “Sure,” and reaches into his pocket. “Hundreds okay?”

“I’m sorry?” Kalmenson says. He pushes out a smile and then turns it off. “I’ve missed something. What’s your role in all this?”

“Mr. Rafferty represents some special interests,” Nguyen says. “I can’t tell you more without compromising the nature of my business with Ton.”

Kalmenson says, “American interests?”