Paradise Burning (22 page)

As what was left of his brain
screamed
No!
Peter saw his
hand reach toward the plate. He should go home, run for it. If he
had the energy to get up off the pillows, he would do just that, he
thought with self-righteous smugness. If he could trust his legs
not to turn to jelly. And, hell, now he had figured out what was
going on, was there any harm in joining in the evening’s
entertainment? After all, he didn’t want to insult his host. Peter
Pennington was a big boy now. Hashish was only a bit stronger than
marijuana. Or at least that was true of the stuff that had been
around when he was in college. It wasn’t any worse—maybe not as
bad—as getting blind drunk. Except that the
mekong
had him halfway there already.

Later he would realize that his slow, careful
rationalization was that first candy doing his thinking for him.
But at the time . . . well, hell, go with the flow. When in Rome
and all that . . . He was Peter Pennington, the guy with a penchant
for exotic locales, new experiences. He probably outweighed his
companion, who’d had three of the damn things, by seventy pounds.
He could handle it.

The second candied confection slid
easily down his throat, instantly spreading its message of good
cheer, camaraderie and
mai pen rai
through his now featherweight, yet throbbing, veins. Or was
that the first confection? he wondered with a momentary flash of
reason. And the second one hadn’t even kicked in yet? Well, shit,
it was too late to do a damn thing about it. It would take a crane
to get his large American body up off the carpet. Whatever was
going to happen, he would have to ride it out and make a note never
to let it happen again.

A gong sounded. Peter dragged his head
up. He must have been dreaming, falling into the set for
The King and I
. He couldn’t have
actually heard a gong. Or tinkling cymbals. Or drums. He blinked to
clear away the drifts of smoke that seemed to have obscured his
eyes as well as his brain. A row of exquisitely beautiful dolls was
threading its way into the room. Tiny, graceful automatons, moving
with mincing steps, heads bowed, hands folded in the
graceful
wai
of respect and
greeting. Each wore traditional Thai dress in intricately
patterned, brilliantly colored batik.

Not dolls. Not robots.

Children.

Jesus!

Thun Udom was saying something. Peter
leaned closer, trying to understand. Auction. His Thai host was
apologizing. He had not expected an auction. But,
mai pen rai
, the girls they wanted
would come later. Meanwhile, have more
mekong
, more candy. Enjoy.

Peter’s toes curled. For a moment he felt
more sober than he had ever been before in his life. It was like
the day he was shown a children’s ward in Iraq where nearly all the
small victims had lost hands, arms, or legs to insurgent bombs.
These Thai children were about to lose something just as precious.
Their innocence. And their freedom.

Peter, struggling, signaled a waiter and
ordered a pot of tea. He took deep breaths, grimaced as he recalled
the insidious smoke from the braziers. Reaching for depths he
rarely had to call upon, he slowly forced himself to an awareness
of the details surrounding him. The air of expectancy that had
permeated the room had risen to palpable, salacious desire, only
slightly tempered by cynical, hard-headed realism. Obviously, most
of the men here had known about the auction; or, if not, were
simply riveted by the sight before them. The room hummed with
excitement. The smell of sexual craving was sickening.

Eight girls, Peter counted. And three
boys. All with perfect oval or heart-shaped faces, full lips,
gracefully arched brows. One, he guessed, might be as young as six,
none older than twelve.
Jesus, but the
Thais were gorgeous!
No wonder Bangkok was the sex
capital of the world.

For most of the men present, Peter
speculated, this was merely a floor show. These children were not
intended for Thai consumption. They were on display for the middle
men who would pedal them on the international market. Whether sold
by their parents or taken from the streets, they would never be
children again. Some would become sex objects; a few lucky ones
might live the good life for a few years until they grew up. Others
would immediately be put to work in brothels, their life expectancy
minimal.

Peter scalded his mouth with his first gulp
of hot tea. Pain stabbed into his brain. It hurt like hell, but his
head was clearing. Thun Udom was staring at him, at the tea.
Wariness was creeping into the Thai’s happy haze of bonhomie. He
had, after all, trusted this Big American who had done such a fine
thing for his second son.

Once again, Peter reminded himself he was a
journalist. He had to watch this awful thing. See it through, even
though he couldn’t betray his host’s trust by revealing what he had
seen. At least not now.

But someday. Someday, Peter vowed, he would
have to do something. Or lose his tenuous hold on the human
race.

His hands shook as he used them both to guide
the steaming tea bowl to his mouth. Up to now he’d enjoyed a
remarkably lax social conscience. On a daily basis, he mouthed all
the right words, easily crafted all the socially and politically
correct commentary for his articles. But never before, no never
before, had he felt this utter conviction that it was his personal
duty to save the world. At least this small, very small, very
young, helpless, hopeless part of it.

The children, legs crossed, had seated
themselves around the edge of the dais. The auctioneer took his
first offering by the hand, raised her to her feet. She was,
perhaps, nine years old, all brown eyes in a heart-shaped face.
Erect carriage, a perfectly calm slight smile. The children, too,
had been offered pretty candies.

Stomach churning, Peter took another slug of
tea and settled grimly into watching the tragedy unfolding before
him.

“
Oh, there you are!” Glenda Garrison
erupted from her fifth wheel, having no difficulty catching up with
Mandy who was plodding toward her RV as if each step might be her
last.

Glenda. Mandy almost groaned out loud.
Could anything be more bright, cheery, and all-American than her
rotund energetic neighbor? What would Glenda do if Mandy repeated
Peter’s tale? Shout, “Filthy voyeur!” and the ladies of Golden
Beach in a boycott of Peter’s books?
Filthy
Voyeur!
The explosive energy of the right sentiments
expended in altogether the wrong direction?

No. More likely, after a goggle-eyed
exclamation, Glenda would simply shrug it off. The selling of
children was too far away. Too foreign. Heathen. Impossible. This
was the good old U S of A where things like that didn’t happen.
Golden Beach was Middle America, filled with solid church-going
citizens who paid their taxes while golfing, boating, fishing and
just plain enjoying the way of life they’d worked so hard to
achieve. The rest of the world was vague rumor, pictures on a TV
screen, words spouting from a commentator’s mouth. Ephemeral
phenomena in Glenda Garrison’s world, which was bounded by Movie
Nights, anti-litter campaigns and admonitions about no bicycles
left lying on the lawn, nothing but plastic drink containers by the
pool. What reality could there be for a comfortable American matron
when she heard about a few tragic children in Thailand? Or a young
schoolteacher from the Urals turning tricks for the Russian
mafia?

If Glenda knew about Nadya, forced into
prostitution just across the river, would she shrug in an American
version of
mai pen rai
and
happily return to arranging bridge tournaments and shuffleboard
matches? In all fairness, Glenda would probably give Mandy advice
that matched Brad Blue’s:
Dial 911, girl.
Let the cops handle it
.

Sensible, pragmatic Glenda. After all,
everyone knew these horrors couldn’t be fixed. There was nothing
one person could do. Even four hundred years ago, Cervantes made
that indelible point when he had Don Quixote tilting at
windmills.

But Peter wasn’t a disempowered, slightly
crazy old man. His voice, added to others around the world, might
actually start a tide of revulsion, something that could nip this
modern flood of slavery in the bud.

Except that it was already in full
flower.

“
Mandy,” Glenda complained, her short
hair flopping in an indignant bounce, “I don’t think you’ve heard a
word I said. I suppose if I was working for Peter Pennington, I
wouldn’t pay much attention to an old lady like me either,” she
added with a lascivious twinkle.

“
Sorry, Glenda. I was thinking about a
problem at work. What can I do for you?”
What campground rule have I violated this week?

“
Nothing, child.” Glenda flashed that
slightly superior ultra-competent clubwoman smile Mandy so detested
in Eleanor. “I just wanted to warn you we’ve received notice the
county is going to do a controlled burn tomorrow, a few miles
upriver, just north of the Whitlaw ranch. There’ll be a lot of
smoke, but nothing to worry about.”

Mandy stared. “Controlled burn?” The words
had an ominous ring, like something Smokey the Bear wouldn’t like
at all.

“
Burns off the undergrowth, helps
control wildfires.” Glenda peered at Mandy. Sighed. “Never heard of
it, did you?”

“
Guess not,” Mandy mumbled.

“
Okay, back to Square One.” Glenda
pursed her lips, obviously crafting words at the kindergarten
level. “Florida’s rainy season is pretty much from June to
September. After that, rain is intermittent. Makes for a great
tourist season, not so good for the woods. Anyway, by February
things are getting real dry, and the tourist season becomes the
fire season, which isn’t great for either the natives or the
snowbirds. So the county deliberately burns the junk growth and
storm debris on the ground to lower the fire danger.”

Mandy nodded, suddenly aware of just how
ignorant she was about this huge state that could swallow
Massachusetts without so much as a burp. “The danger of wildfire
never occurred to me.” She frowned. “But what about the Whitlaw
ranch? Do they burn there too?”

Glenda made a wry face. “Wade Whitlaw’s a law
unto himself. I doubt he’d let the county set foot on his land.
Especially not with those flame-thrower things. Scary. Saw them on
TV.”

“
Glenda . . . what about Amber Run? I
know they’ve got the brush under control, all neatened up, but I
just realized all those trees around the houses—beautiful as they
are and great for shade—they’re a fire hazard, aren’t
they?”

“
That’s what the experts keep telling
us, but people love the woods. I hear Amber Run is up for some kind
of award. Ambiance beats practicality every time.” Glenda winked.
“Sort of like high heels.”

Mandy’s lips curled into an answering smile.
“Right. Thanks for the warning. I can’t imagine what I would have
thought when I saw the smoke.”

Glenda, looking pleased with herself, waved
and headed back toward her oversize trailer.

Mandy dragged herself up the steps of her RV.
She hadn’t needed to add wildfire to her other worries. Why
couldn’t she have stayed in her perfectly crafted, Mandy-sized
niche at AKA? Ignorant of the world outside her concrete
underground bunker, except where its aberrations intersected with
the work of Armitage, Kingsley & Associates?

Two words. Peter Pennington. Though terrified
of another failure, she wasn’t such a slave of AKA that she would
have accepted the assignment with Peter unless she’d wanted to.

Wanted him.

Unless she was willing to risk pain and
heartbreak all over again.

For Peter. For a real marriage. Children.

Reality check. She, too, needed a controlled
burn to devour the deadwood impeding her life, so she could soar
like one of Florida’s towering pines. Grow solid sturdy roots like
a hardy live oak.

Or would her personal burn roar out of
control, plunging her into choking darkness and searing pain?

Blindly, Mandy made her way to her
bedroom in the rear of the RV and sank onto the edge of the bed.
She didn’t want to think. She
refused
to think.

Relentlessly, the images stalked her anyway.
The unmoving infrared image that was Kira. Eleanor’s implacable
features as she exiled Mandy to Florida. Peter roaring, “Where the
hell have you been?” Nadya’s wraith-like form rising above the
mist. Jade, Delilah, and Fawn. Peter and the Thai children.

Pennington the Penitent. Did that old saying
about reformed rakes making the best husbands still hold true?

Kira’s dark eyes, dancing with life in her
strong-boned face, swept Peter’s image away. What were Mandy’s
personal problems compared to the death of a friend?

Reality was, Kira Malfi died for a cause
Mandy Armitage had never quite embraced. Probably because it was
Eleanor’s shining, hopeless Grail.

Face it, idiot. You were nearly as clueless
as John Q. Public. But now’s your chance to do something useful.
Nadya you can save.

Too bad hadn’t taught her the nastier tricks
of his trade.

From his third-floor office with the
wraparound view Peter watched Mandy’s car disappear into the
parking area under the house. It was now or never, he supposed.
Rejection Nine Hundred Ninety Nine coming up. Well . . . maybe not.
She wanted her very own Bubba or Bubette, and he was only too
willing to cooperate. Since when had Peter Pennington been above
the oblique approach, or even a bit of skullduggery, to achieve his
goals?