Salty (15 page)

The Australian, not a man above a random nooner with a hot chick like Marybeth, spoke diplomatically.

“Oh, INXS, Midnight Oil, that kind of thing. I'm pretty old-fashioned.”

Clive turned back to Turk.

“Mr. Henry. I spoke with your manager this morning, and I want to reassure you that we're prepared to do whatever it takes to see your wife safely repatriated.”

Turk sighed. Finally, experts were taking over. Someone was doing something.

“First thing I need to do is run what we call a risk assessment. Find out who might be behind this, what kind of threat they might be, what kind of resources I might utilize to extricate your wife from this situation.”

“I just need someone to give these guys the money.”

“That's exactly right. But I think it's important we understand who we're dealing with. Don't you?”

Turk didn't answer.

“I'm a former member of the Australian First Commando Regiment. And I know how to plan and execute a tactical rescue. We are experts in this kind of thing. Let me do my job. Trust me, you're in good hands.”

Clive smiled, flashing a set of perfectly straight, gleaming white Australian teeth. They were the teeth of the New World, confident and irresistible. Turk nodded. For some reason he felt reassured.

It was true: Clive Muggleton was a former commando, and he did know his stuff. But in the last ten years, stuck behind a desk, he'd let himself go, hardly working out, and spending much of his free time in a Soi Cowboy bar consuming vast quantities of vodka spiked with balls of opium from Chiang Mai. When business was slow he'd scuffle off to a brothel and spend the afternoon drinking beer and fucking fresh young Thai girls just off the farm. It wasn't
much of a hobby, but it beat sitting at his desk reading corporate e-mails.

Even though he was only forty-one, Clive realized he was getting older, that his commando days were behind him; he wasn't going to be crawling through the mud with an assault rifle anytime soon. So living in Bangkok had become one extended midlife crisis for him. But if he no longer had the strength or the balls to fast-rope out of a Black Hawk helicopter, he could still party like the young commando he'd once been, could still get wasted and screw women half his age. Although he had to admit to himself that the hangovers had become more and more ferocious as the years passed and his liver disintegrated.

But what Clive lacked in fitness, he more than made up for by being a good salesman, a closer. It wasn't a difficult job. Turk wanted his wife back, but didn't know what to do. He was emotional, confused, and frankly didn't have the skill set to locate a car in a parking garage. Turk would do the sensible thing. He would let the experts take over. It would cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars, but he could go back to doing whatever it was rock stars do.

Turk had one last concern.

“What if something goes wrong?”

Clive leaned in, put on his most serious warrior-like expression, and closed the deal.

“Then I promise you one thing. We will find the people behind this and bring you their heads in a bag.”

Turk nodded. Sold. Although it did sound like something he remembered from an old movie.

“How long is it going to take?”

Clive smiled.

“I just need you to sign some papers—our contract and a release form—and then I'll get right on it. I should know something in a few hours. We can meet later tonight, somewhere discreet, and I'll brief you.”

…

Turk and Marybeth walked out of the air-conditioned high-rise into the sweltering Bangkok heat. Sweat erupted from Turk's forehead the moment he stepped outside. Marybeth's makeup began breaking down in the thick, humid air, making her look ragged, as if she'd been up partying for days.

They looked for a cab in the fast-moving free-for-all that constituted traffic patterns on Silom Road. It was anarchy in action. There were no stop signs, signal lights, or pedestrian crossings that Turk could see, yet pedestrians crossed the free-flowing bumper car craziness without getting crushed, killed, or pancaked by what looked like a zillion cars,
tuk tuks
, motorcycles, and scooters careening around each other.

“This is some crazy shit.”

“Traffic's fucking unbelievable here.”

A motorcycle with a food cart strapped to its side stopped in front of them. Turk pointed it out to Marybeth.

“Look at this guy. Instead of driving to the restaurant, he's driving the restaurant. That's so cool.” Turk flashed the devil horn salute to the motorcycle driver.

“Rock 'n' fuckin' roll, dude.”

Marybeth smiled. She didn't think a guy with a grill strapped to his scooter was all that rock and roll, but then she wasn't a rock star like Turk, so she just kept smiling.

“Yeah.”

The motorcyclist nodded, then moved off as traffic de-congested somewhere and the flow resumed. Turk watched as a couple of
tuk tuks
drove along the side of the street, weaving between the cars and the vendors.

“Maybe we should take one of those.”

Marybeth wrinkled her nose. “If you want to get high on car exhaust.”

“It's better than standing here.”

“All that pollution is really bad for your skin.”

Marybeth spotted a cab on the other side of the street and pointed. “There's one. Over there.”

Turk saw the cab, parked half on the sidewalk, across six lanes of death-on-wheels.

“Great. How do we get there?”

Marybeth grabbed his arm. “C'mon.”

She stepped out into the street. Turk pulled her back.

“Are you crazy? We'll get killed.”

Marybeth pointed out all the locals crossing the road.

“We just gotta go like they do. Show me a little faith.”

“Show Me a Little Faith” had been a massive hit for Metal Assassin. Turk tried to remember the lyrics, but could only recall the chorus. That's where Steve hit the big high note and a gigantic dove with an olive branch stuck in its beak would suddenly fly from the back of the stadium to the front of the stage. It might not have been as totally metal as their other stunts and pyrotechnics, but the dove had been designed by the same guy who did all the Rose Parade floats and it looked really cool. And chicks dug it. Turk briefly flashed on a memory of crawling in the dove with some crazy groupie and getting it on.

“C'mon.”

Marybeth took his hand and led him out into the river of steel. It was almost magical, like Moses parting the Red Sea. Somehow the traffic adjusted for them, swerving around them, braking and accelerating, leaving them enough room to cross. Turk couldn't believe it. He grinned at Marybeth.

“That fucking rocked.”

…

Turk sat in the back of the cab marveling at the city. He looked out at the shops along the road. Gem dealers, silk traders, custom tailors, currency exchanges, office buildings—it had all the hustle and bustle of New York, the familiar scenes of any metropolis, and yet Bangkok was completely different from any city he'd ever been in. Turk couldn't quite figure out what it was. Sure, some of the architecture was crazy; not like the Guggenheim in New York or Museo Bilbao in Spain or the Disneyland in California—Thai architecture had its own insane style. The temples, the palace, the traditional Thai architecture was like nothing he'd ever seen before. The colors were amazing: shockingly bright reds; vibrant blues, oranges, and greens; blindingly clean white. The shapes were out of control—ornate peaked roofs, intricate and bizarre patterns and details cut into the structures, strange flourishes perched on the corners of the roofs, reaching up to the sky like alien epaulets. Turk laughed to himself. You could use some of these buildings as a set for an extraterrestrial invasion video and people would believe they really came from outer space.

Marybeth broke the silence.

“You look like you need to unwind. Want to go out tonight?”

“For dinner?”

“Yeah. Dinner and then let's go clubbing.”

“I don't know.”

“Dude, we're in Bangkok. It's like got the most famous nightlife of any city in the world. We gotta go.”

Turk felt a shiver go through his body. For him, Bangkok was legendary; it was the world's biggest living breathing
catalytic environment
. It was exactly the kind of place his therapist would not want him to be.

“I don't think so, Marybeth.”

Marybeth knew why Turk was being hesitant.

“Turk, dude, you gotta face your fears. And besides, I'll be with you the whole time, holding your hand.”

“I was going to get a massage.”

“Get a massage and then we'll go out. You need to chill, dude. The rescue guy's working on it; let him do his thing.”

Turk didn't answer so Marybeth smiled her sweetest, sexiest smile at him.

“Please.”

“I guess you're right. Sheila would want me to see the city.”

Ben watched Turk and Marybeth cross the street. In the back of his mind he was hoping for a little luck; an auto accident would be perfect. But that didn't happen. As he watched Marybeth, checking out her cute ass, he made a note to himself. He'd order a background workup on her. That might be fun.

Ben didn't follow them; he figured they'd return to the hotel. He drove off, heading back to his office in the U.S.
Embassy on Wireless Road. Once there he'd send a message to Washington and have the State Department call Lampard International headquarters in London and put the kibosh on this whole thing. When it came to interdicting the aid and support of terrorist organizations, the United States government didn't fuck around.

…

Turk lay on the bed in his hotel room. The masseuse, a squat young Thai woman from the provinces, had made him put on some strange cotton pajamas and was now giving him a traditional Thai massage. It wasn't like any rubdown he'd ever had. She twisted his legs and torqued his body into a series of odd angles and strange poses that were supposed to stretch and relax him. The fact that it was working—he felt great—was a surprise. Turk realized that nothing here was really what it seemed. Or maybe it was exactly what it seemed, only he'd never thought about it that way.

The massage went on and on, lasting almost two hours. When she was done, the masseuse looked at him.

“You want happy finish?”

Turk, who was in a kind of endorphin release trance, blinked.

“I'm sorry.”

“You want happy finish? Special massage.”

Turk thought about it. Hadn't he just had a special massage? What more could she be offering? He grasped her intent at the exact same moment that she grasped his cock.

“Uh.”

“It's okay, mister. Happy finish good.”

Turk thought about Sheila, about his marriage vows, about his promise to try and be monogamous for the rest of his life. Is a happy finish the same as sex? Or is it part of the massage, just on a different part of the body? Is getting a massage the same as being unfaithful? Or is getting a massage okay? Turk supposed that if you called it a hand job then it could be considered infidelity. But this was a massage. Happy finish good.

Turk wanted to hold off. To wait and give it further consideration. He wanted to discuss it with his therapist. But by the time he'd come to this decision, he'd ejaculated all over the strange cotton pajamas.

…

The guilt he felt after the masseuse left was overwhelming. All the therapy, all the soul-searching, all the restraint that he was so proud of, everything that he had worked so hard for was tossed out the window in one quick happy finish.

Turk stood up and looked at himself in the mirror.
What have you done?
He couldn't face himself; he turned away from his reflection and sat on the edge of the bed.

He held his face in his hands and began to cry.

Like a lot of heavy metal bass players, Turk wasn't particularly emotional. He didn't cry at movies or weddings. He didn't cry at funerals. He didn't cry when Metal Assassin got their first double platinum album. He didn't cry when they won their Grammy award. He didn't cry when they called it quits.

But now he was blubbering like a prom-jilted teenage girl. Hot tears were freely flowing down his cheeks, strings of mucus were hanging off his nose, his chest heaved with
mournful sobs, and he couldn't stop it. He cried because he was disappointed in himself. He wanted to be cured, free of his addiction. He wanted to be stronger. He wanted to be faithful to his poor kidnapped wife.

Turk needed to call his therapist but realized that the time was wrong. It'd be too early or too late or something in L.A. Everything was upside down here. He wanted a pill, some kind of Xanax or antidepressant, a pharmaceutical monkey wrench to shut off the flow of tears, something to numb him out; but he didn't have anything like that. Unable to stop sobbing, he grabbed a Singha out of the minibar and headed into the bathroom to take a shower.

…

By the time Turk got out of the shower he'd stopped crying. He hit the minibar for another brew and, wearing only a towel, went to the window to watch the boats on the Chao Phraya. He didn't know why, but there was something about the view that calmed him. Maybe it was the sense that he was safe in his room while chaos swirled around him. Maybe it was just watching the water taxis flying across the river, cutting in front of barges and tour boats, just like taxis in the streets. Maybe it was the Thai architecture;
Wat Arun
—the guidebook in the hotel called it the “Temple of the Dawn”—was visible across the river, made entirely of ceramic plates and jutting up into the sky. It reminded Turk of the spaceships in the
Star Wars
movies. He liked that he could see an ancient temple from his modern hotel window.

…

In the shower Turk had thought about the happy finish. He started to come up with the usual excuses: he was under enormous stress from dealing with Sheila's abduction; he didn't mean to do it, it just sorta happened; he thought it was part of the massage and didn't want to offend his foreign masseuse by declining. He could keep the justifications coming for hours if he had to. But then he had an epiphany: he decided that he wasn't going to rationalize anymore. He wasn't going to blame someone or something else. He was going to take responsibility for the fact that he had allowed it to happen. His therapist would say that it was part of the cycle of addiction. But Turk didn't know what to think. He was confused. Wasn't blaming the addiction for his behavior just another excuse?