Spy Mom (11 page)

“There is a chance that there might be other players involved too. People of interest to us.”

“Who?”

“I'll tell you on a need-to-know basis.”

“I need to know now.”

“No, you don't.”

“Blackford,” I said, matter-of-factly.

“Definitely not Blackford,” Simon said.

“You're lying.”

“And you're insubordinate.”

“I do what I can.”

“Go to sleep.”

“I can't. You keep fidgeting around over there and it's really annoying.”

“Learn to ignore it.”

“Fine.” I pulled my eyeshade down and reclined my seat. I could still feel the vibrations of Simon's aerobics, but eventually I fell asleep anyway.

Bangkok in November is not altogether unpleasant, if you don't mind your days being extremely hot, humid, and gritty. The air was thick with pollution hanging in a haze over the city as we left the airport and headed into town. The view outside never seemed to change. The half-finished buildings never got any closer to being done, the construction cranes long gone to China. As we whizzed along on the toll road designed for visitors with cash, I could see the locals sitting in mile after mile of stopped traffic on the parallel free route, their cars belching gray smoke into the toxic mix outside. Our cab driver tried to convince us to go immediately to his cousin's shop for custom-made suits and dresses, but shut up after I explained in Thai how we weren't here as tourists but with a United Nations agency looking into the exploitation of Thai children in the custom clothing sector. We stopped briefly at Simon's favorite Bangkok guesthouse to drop off our few belongings. He was greeted like a member of the family who's been gone for a while. He explained that he'd been promoted and had not been spending quite as much time on the road as he used to. That was news to me.

“Such good work you do, sir,” the owner said, leading us to our rooms. “So nice you find pretty girl to travel with.” The very thought turned my stomach, but I didn't say anything.

Simon followed me into my room and shut the door. He sat down on my thin mattress, propped himself up comfortably on my single pillow, and started to do that thing he was always doing with his fingers. Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people. You know that one, right? Whenever Simon was contemplating throwing you to the wolves, he'd start in with that routine. It was fascinating to watch, his fingers and hands moving as if independent from the rest of his body. This was not going to be good for me.

“The Blind Monk knows me, obviously, but he doesn't know you, at least not yet,” Simon said, fingers moving furiously. Church, steeple, people, church, steeple, people. “So you will be the lead here. But I don't want you to do anything. Go to his place and get a massage and see what you can see, nothing more. We'll figure out a plan after we know a few things. There are sure to be at least half a dozen of his men around so don't make any moves. You are another American tourist on vacation. Is that understood? Remember every little detail that you see. The Blind Monk's strength is in the details.”

I nodded my head, thinking a massage sounded kind of nice, considering the circumstances.

“I'll be watching you from the coffee shop across the street. If he tries to kill you, of course, feel free to defend yourself.”

“Gee, thanks for the permission.”

The Blind Monk's massage parlor was known for being straight. If you wanted a prostitute for a little extra behind the curtain, you'd have to take your business down the road, although not very far.

I asked at the front desk how long I'd have to wait for the Blind Monk himself to do my massage and was told about an hour, which was perfect, allowing me time to sit unobtrusively and watch what was going on.

The place was jumping with clients, mostly western, coming and going from behind a flowing curtain covering the door to the massage stations. Most emerged with happy, dopey expressions on their faces, floating out the front entrance with a sublime disinterest in the chaos that awaited them out there. There were two large Thai men behind the counter with the receptionist. They didn't seem to be doing anything but sitting there and I assumed they were the Blind Monk's bodyguards. There were also several female masseuses that came in and out to collect clients. Nothing else of interest transpired.

Eventually the Blind Monk himself emerged from behind the curtain. He was so enormous that his monastic robes strained across his shoulders and barely covered his knees. I could see the silky dark hair cascading down his calves, coming to a hard stop at his ankles. His hands were roughly the size of frying pans and he rubbed them together like he was about to sit down before a grand feast. I just hoped it wasn't me.

He filled the space behind the small counter, dwarfing the very men meant to protect him. Dark sunglasses hid his perfectly functioning eyes. He gestured that I was to follow him, which I did.

Behind the curtain were about six massage stations, small cubicles divided by curtains, with raised platforms covered in dense straw mats. I was invited to change into the flowing pajamas typical to Thai massage.

For the first hour everything went fine. I was actually feeling pretty good. The perpetual tingly tightness in my neck began to disappear beneath the aggressive hands of the Blind Monk. I was so relaxed that I didn't much notice the brief pause in my massage and the totally wrong stillness that followed. I raised my head off of the mat.

“Are we all done?” I asked, feeling a little bit dizzy. Looking left and right, I realized I was now the only one in the back room. All the other massage stalls were empty. Uh-oh. I rolled over and sat up to face the Blind Monk flanked by his goons from behind the desk. They made a strange sight. The Blind Monk could almost rest his elbows on their heads. I smiled, trying to contain my urge to giggle.

“I am so pleased you came right to me rather than me having to chase you all over the world,” the Blind Monk said in perfect English. “You are as lovely as everyone says. A shame, but Blackford has brought this on himself. Your demise will send the exact message to him that I intend.” Before I had time to think of a clever retort, he pushed me back onto the massage mat, took my right arm, and pulled it back and up toward the base of my neck until I shouted out with the pain.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said, weakly.

“Speak Thai,” the Blind Monk demanded, adding a little more pressure to my arm.

“But you're speaking English!” I squeaked through the searing flash in my shoulder.

“Doesn't matter what I do. We are in Thailand, are we not? You Americans, you all think the world should bend to your whim and speak English. So you speak Thai.”

“I would love to speak Thai,” I said in English. “But I can't even say hello. I am not who you think I am.” This made him pull a little harder on my arm. I groaned.

“I said speak Thai!”

“I'll speak fucking Greek if you want me to. I still don't know why we are having this conversation!”

“You are Sally Sin of the United States, are you not?

“Who?”

“Your acting, it does not convince me. But I have a way to find out if you are Sally Sin or not.”

I didn't really want to hear it but figured he was going to tell me anyway.

“Put her in the cage,” the Blind Monk announced. He pulled a little bit harder on my arm. I could feel my shoulder reaching its limits. “If Blackford shows up to rescue her, we know she is Sally Sin and we kill her. If Blackford doesn't show up to rescue her, well, we kill her anyway.” The Blind Monk laughed at his own joke. His two bodyguards joined in although I doubted they understood anything he was saying in English.

With that he gave my arm a final twist. And when my shoulder released my arm, popping it clean out of its socket, I passed out.

Later, Simon Still berated me for passing out over something as mundane as a dislocated shoulder. He reminded me that passing out was only acceptable if I was dead. Still, it hurt like hell and when I woke up in a wire cage attached to a rusty-looking crane dangling over the Chao Phraya River, it didn't feel much better. The cage was about twenty feet above the water, suspended on a thin chain that looked like it could go at any moment.

Through the cloud of pain, I remembered what the Blind Monk said about killing me to piss off Blackford. The very thought made me groan. And where the hell was Simon? What happened to his watching me from across the street? This was turning out to be a bad afternoon all around.

There is a technique for relocating your shoulder. It hurts. A lot. Especially if you are trying to do it while sitting in a cage designed for a small dog over a fast-running, filthy river.

I lay on the bottom of the cage, with my legs bent into my chest, my agonizing arm flat alongside my body. I bent my elbow so my hand was now at a right angle to my body.

“Fuck!” I screamed, the pain blurring my vision for a few seconds. “I hate this job!” I lay my forearm across my chest and rotated it back out, keeping my upper arm stationary. I started to sweat, the drops leaving a cold trail as they rolled down my forehead. Slowly, I attempted to coax the wayward shoulder back into its socket. I repeated the process, the whole time cursing Simon Still and his inept planning. Finally, a pop followed by a wave of relief and pure nausea. I rolled over on my side and threw up through the mesh bottom of the cage. Great. Things were really looking up.

After a few minutes I sat up as best I could in my cramped cell and assessed my situation. My shoulder and arm throbbed with the trauma of the dislocation. I craved a drink of water, only made worse by the river flowing beneath me.

“So here I am,” I said out loud to nobody but the fishes. “Not likely that anyone is going to rescue me, right?” The water was silent. “No, not likely.” I shifted my weight, trying to ease the pressure on my shoulder, pushed up against the side of the cage.

But before I could get too comfortable, the bottom of the rusty old thing gave out. I heard the slightest scraping sound and then I dropped twenty feet into the muddy brown Chao Phraya. The Chao Phraya looks like a relatively calm river. At any given time, it's so crowded with boats and ferries and people floating on wooden pallets that you'd think it was an easily navigable waterway. But at certain times of the year it flows with purpose, fast and reckless, belying its calm surface.

This was one of those times. To say my sudden plunge into the water surprised me would probably be an understatement. As I hit, I held my weak arm to my body to lessen the shock of the impact. I shot downward like a missile about ten feet before the desperate flapping with my good arm stopped my descent. Then I paddled toward the surface, breaking through with a gasp. The water tasted of metal and gas in my mouth. The shoreline rushed by. I tried to swim toward it but my arm wouldn't cooperate and it was all I could do to stay afloat.

Strange. I never thought I'd die by drowning. Maybe getting pushed off a cliff or run over by a bus or something, but drowning never occurred to me. I thought for a second I might cry. There were things I wanted to do in my life. I wasn't exactly sure what they were but I knew they were out there. And if I were dead I'd never figure them out.

Flipping onto my back, I started to kick deliberately with my feet and pull with the good arm.

At first, all I could hear was a faint buzz under water. It grew into a whine, getting louder as the engine drew closer. A Jet Ski. I picked my head up enough to see it coming right for me. I ducked under the water fast and despite the pain started to swim like hell toward the shore. When I opened my eyes, it looked like I was swimming through a huge cup of tea, my orange hands cutting through the dirty water in front of me.

The engine whine faded into the distance but soon headed back in my direction. I dove again, watching it pass inches above my head.

I heard a splash and one of the Jet Ski passengers plunged into the water. The man was in a wet suit, with a mask, swim fins, and a small tank of compressed air. Definitely not a level playing field, in my opinion.

Beneath me I could see the dark hulk of what had to be a collapsed pier. Rusted steel beams protruded out of the slabs of concrete, now covered in a thick layer of soft green seaweed. I took a deep breath and swam down toward the pier. The man was right at my heels, breathing comfortably while my lungs burned. I slipped a foot under one of the bent steel rods sticking out of the concrete. The man grabbed my good arm, trying to pull me toward him and the surface. I resisted, instead pulling him down toward me.

We rotated in the water around each other, doing a strange sort of ballet. As we turned, I pushed him backward with all of my strength onto a protruding rusty beam with a nasty point. It pierced him like a knife. In his shock the regulator fell out of his mouth. I snatched it and sucked the air into my empty lungs, my eyes on the verge of popping out of my head. Trying to breathe normally, I swam through the cloud of blood, not toward the surface but toward the shore, leaving my skewered victim without even a glance back.

I climbed out of the water a good ways downriver from where I had started, collapsing on the dirty street in an exhausted heap. Simon Still stood nearby, his white suit immaculate despite the dust.

“You look terrible, Sal,” he said. “Hope your tetanus is up to date.”

I could barely lift my head, the taste of Chao Phraya and blood still polluting my mouth.

“I hate you,” I said quietly, rolling over in the dirt.

“No, you don't.” Simon lit a cigarette and blew a perfect smoke ring in my direction.

“Yes,” I confirmed, “I really do. Thanks for your help.”

“Well, I couldn't exactly barge in there and save you, now could I? Then we both would have ended up in that cage. And that would have been a real calamity.”