THE POLITICS OF PLEASURE (48 page)

Michelle thought back to the haze and pain of that fateful night. The head gunman had asked Rick Sorenson if he was Scott Goldman. It seemed the night's violence had come about because of Scott. What kind of trouble was he in? Obviously of a worse kind than what he'd painted in her Crystal City apartment.

Still she knew he was right, sober and wise, by his absence; even though it pained her that she wouldn't see him again. But of course she had to look out for herself. After all physical survival was paramount. Her romantic connection with Scott wasn't worth getting killed over. No way, Jose. And what were she and Scott if not star-crossed lovers? All the same it'd been quite a ride. Yes, the reckless Australian whose car and life she'd stepped into back east had greatly affected her, and she wouldn't easily forget him. He'd touched her deeply and made her feel unprecedentedly good for a time. So much so she'd covered his ass from the law. Maybe in the future, under different circumstances ...

She gazed from the hospital balcony at sun-lit buildings, at the distant specks of flying birds. A sunny moment of contemplation she would surely look back on. She couldn't deny she'd reached a turning point in her life. For past days she'd thought about many things, about being violently gunned down. From her brush with death she'd adopted a more sober perspective. She'd promised herself not to jump willy-nilly into unchartered waters. For one thing she wouldn't allow herself to be swept off her feet by another man. She would resist the heady flush of neurochemicals that induce any initial attraction for a member of the opposite sex. She would abstain. After all where had being with men got her? Nearly killed, it would seem ...

Well such was her determination as she sat alone on the hospital balcony, straddled with days of introspection. She was an attractive woman. Men were always after her and she would have to deal with their advances for many years to come. Accordingly she promised to be more discerning of future suitors. She would insist on a probationary period before committing herself physically and emotionally to any kind of relationship. She would simply wait for a genuine mate who had a worthwhile life to share with her.

Meantime there was good news. Carmen had called from the NY rehab her brother had put her in. Apparently she'd beaten her addiction, but brother and staff had insisted she finish the program. She'd sent Michelle a lush bouquet of assorted roses, beautifully arranged and attractively bowed. And on a gold, embossed card Carmen's flowery scrawl gushed with the sentiment of resurrected friendship. She was truly glad 'chelly had split up with Terence, “Even if you had to get shot-up on the other side of the country to achieve it”. Thanks C, Michelle had thought upon reading the line. It seemed Michelle's roller-coaster friendship with Carmen had survived yet another turn.

Meanwhile the promise of a new career beckoned.

Alexis Models had tried to contact Michelle for the past fortnight, but without success. Then an agency employee saw Michelle's prime-time television interview. The following day Michelle received a call on her bedside phone. The deal sounded good, better than the original deal the agency had set up for her.

A Spanish prince who'd started a fashion house with an official from the Chambre Syndicale and designers once with Lacroix and Valentino had handpicked Michelle and other models from a selection of agency portfolios. Filippo Ruspoli planned a lavish parade – apparently inside the Louvre – to showcase his new
Haute-Couture
spring/summer collection. The thirty-two year old prince who invariably wore tailored Spanish suits and silk Charvet shirts (and who reportedly washed his hair in Alpine spring water) was from all accounts smitten by Michelle's looks. Apparently she possessed the “superfine Nordic dimension” the prince considered crucial in the global marketing of his house's upcoming collection.

Modelling such covering clothes (it seemed the collection didn't favour many low-slung or revealing designs) would certainly prove advantageous, in that Michelle's chest wounds would take time to heal (and should she prove too scarred from her bullet wounds, her good friend Sandy knew of a renown cosmetic surgeon who'd chopped and changed a galaxy of Hollywood celebrities). Michelle now waited for legal advice on her new Alexis Models employment contract.

'That's a disgusting habit to have taken up again,' said a blond nurse from Culverwood, who wasn't averse to letting people know she'd won last year's Open Surf Contest at Huntington Beach. She stared disapprovingly at the tin ashtray on the armrest of Michelle's chair.

'Come on, Miss Eastman.' The nurse clapped authoritatively. 'Get back to bed so I can take your blood pressure and temperature.'

Comfortably seated on the balcony with the magazine and a light blanket on her lap, Michelle turned to the nurse and said, 'Take them here, if you don't mind, nurse. It seems silly to drag myself back to my room, only to come out here again. I need the fresh air.'

'You certainly must, smoking those damn cigarettes. Now, please.' The impatient nurse clapped again, her molars grinding to the occasion.

'No,' Michelle said, looking the nurse in the eye. After staring each other down, the time-starved nurse said very well, and not pleased, marched off to get Michelle's thermometer and chart.

Michelle leaned back in her seat and gazed at the unmarred sky, twirling her fringe. She'd made up her mind. She wouldn't be trapped again in a world she never made; nor would she be an incidental fixture to some mate's reality. From now on she would live her life on her terms. She lit another cigarette, bit her lip, and sensed the texture of future days.

Jomtien, Thailand. Saturday, 15th November 1980.

Rod Haslow strolled along a pleasant stretch of tropical beach. A refreshing onshore breeze caressed his face and small rhythmic waves broke gently at his feet. With a floral shirt tied about his waist and loose cotton pants rolled up to his knees, he felt equal to the fine blue morning about him. Colourful rows of Nipa umbrellas with tourists and locals lounging under them spiked the grey sands of Bang Sare Bay. Up from the beach, traffic streamed along Jomtien Beach Road. Squat apartment blocks and native palms made up much of the skyline.

Haslow had flown into Bangkok a week before. To his relief, his counterfeit passport and visa had got him into the country without a hitch. He'd checked into a
Lonely Planet
-recommended hotel on Rama IV Road, and once settled had telephoned Chuan Suttarom, an old university friend working for a large Bangkok pharmaceutical concern. Suttarom, it turned out, had gone to a pharmacology conference in Pune, India, and from there planned to visit his sister who managed a backpackers hostel in the coastal tourist town of Goa.

With several days to kill, Haslow caught a bus to Pattaya, a seaside city a hundred and fifty kilometres southeast of Bangkok. He rented a room in a multi-storey hotel two blocks back from the hustle and bustle of Pattaya Beach. While having a coffee in the hotel lobby one morning, he met Manaschanok. It seemed the pretty local had set up office in the busy lobby, for Haslow saw her there many times. This morning she greeted him with a smiling
Sawatdee
and a customary
wai
. All up he found it difficult to resist the young woman's advances. From the pressures of being a fugitive in a foreign land, and having not slept with a woman since his wife, he eventually succumbed to Mana's offers of undreamed-of bedroom pleasures.

In Haslow's room the twenty-one year old treated him as if he were her idol. Mana introduced him to a galaxy of pleasures, many of which involved little risk of venereal infection. Haslow spent memorable nights with her, unloosing knots of bitterness which had brewed inside him like budding cancers. Manaschanok made him feel like a king and he'd willingly paid her for it, hardly caring it was the first time he’d made use of the world's oldest profession.

Now, he walked along the curving bay that lead out into the Thai Gulf. He had a comfortable supply of traveller's cheques and a US postal box address his brother had given him should he need further funds. His position, therefore, was not entirely unfortunate.

He walked away from the gently lapping surf towards a thatch-roofed store on the other side of Jomtien Beach Road. The late-morning sun had made him particularly thirsty. He strolled past lines of umbrellas under which foreign men lounged with native boys and girls, some unguarded in their displays of affection. A burly man with tattoos tousled the hair of a teenage boy nestled against him. The man reached inside a portable ice box and grabbed a dripping can of imported beer.

Jesus H. Christ, now I've seen everything, Haslow thought. He left the warm grey sand and headed for the convenience store. He stepped inside and made a beeline for the glass doors of the store's loudly whirring refrigerator. He bought a can of locally made cola. He pulled off the ring-tab and the bubbly liquid coursed down his throat as if he were born for this moment alone.

Feeling better, Haslow walked outside and re-embraced the warm day. He squinted from the shimmering expanse of water. Fresh from a dip in the bay, a Thai girl wearing a G-string and a wet singlet (her dark nipples highlighted by clinging cotton) brushed past Haslow. An elderly Mediterranean male lagged behind her. She lit a cigarette and held out a hand. 'Come, come,
teelac.'

Haslow tossed his empty can into a woven cane bin and headed for his open-top 4WD. He climbed behind the wheel and gazed through the windshield. A teenage girl in a black satin dress offer gifts of incense, fruit and flowers at a small Buddhist shrine set in the shade of nearby palms.

Haslow started the rented jeep and reversed out of his space, the sun an overhead furnace. Scott Goldman came to mind, which soon had him brooding. Again he resented that Goldman's shenanigans at Silverwood Centre had forced Haslow's move to this side of the world. Yes, it would be hard to forgive the Australian chemist any time soon.

Still a new side of Haslow was emerging. He remembered only too well the bitter loneliness of his post-Madeleine world back in America. Spiritually bankrupt and locked into a 9 to 5 job, he'd had little to offer any woman.
Groundhog Day
at its worst, or so it had seemed in the darkest days of his funk. In Thailand he sensed an excitement simmering underneath the surface of commonplace things. His veins throbbed and pulsed from endless stimulation, from a rich tapestry of sight and sound untamed by First World correctness. Superficiality had no place in the Orient. Accordingly each day gave birth to a more manful side of him. He just might rise from the ashes of his past and live a more fulfilling life in this part of the world. Of course it was early days ...

He put on a pair of Wayfarer sunglasses and swerved out of the parking lot. After merging with traffic on Jomtien Beach Road, he remembered that fateful night in Towson, Baltimore. What had happened to Goldman? Haslow knew he had little chance of knowing, unless of course he read about the chemist's capture in the international section of a newspaper, or else stumbled upon the red-haired Australian in who knew what country or place.

In any event, Haslow could only look out for himself. Hopefully Chuan Suttarom would find him a job in Bangkok's growing pharmaceutical industry. Also, an ex-Pat who owned a steakhouse/bar on Cowboy Soi had assured Haslow the tactful dispensation of American dollars in this part of the world could buy one almost anything – not impossibly Thai residence. This same ex-Pat gave the impression of knowing a military source for such a venture.

With Scott Goldman and an undefined future on his mind, Haslow weaved his jeep through the busy lanes of traffic leading to Pattaya Beach, his heart less troubled than the day before.

Maryland, USA. Monday, 1st December 1980.

General Turner sat in the panelled study of his Bethesda home. He reached across and turned off a portable television at the back of his desk (where once had stood a plastic model ship and a faux antique clock). He'd just watched a CBS coverage of President-elect Reagan's recent visit to Capitol Hill. A report on a pointed meeting in the chambers of House Speaker Tip O'Neill. Apparently Speaker O'Neill told Reagan and Vice President-elect Bush that they were now “in the big league and things might not move as quickly as you like”.

Still, Reagan was in and sixty-three year old General Alexander Turner was part of the new administration. From the 21st of January 1981, Turner would be, along with Frank G. Carlacotti, Robert Allen and others, a permanent National Security Advisor.

The silver-haired general extracted a Padron cigar from a redwood box on his desk. The high-quality tobacco grown in Nicaragua from Cuban seed. He lit the cigar and puffed on it, savouring the exquisite smoke. He poured himself a shot of Chivas Regal and glanced disapprovingly at a soup stain on the sleeve of his Ralph Lauren cardigan. His wife Betty and two friends had gone to Las Vegas to gamble, get tipsy and generally girl it up amidst the bright lights and gaming tables of the 24/7 gambling Mecca.

Roswell felt to visit Bambra Studio, to see what nasty little girls the upmarket brothel had on offer since his last visit a year ago. From the pressures of recent politicking he needed to let off some steam. Marcella, the spirited little Brazilian whom he'd slept with during his last time at Bambra, came to mind. She'd made a lasting impression in the minuscule part of the general's world reserved for her kind. With Betty on the other side of the country it was an opportune time for any such indulgence.

He swallowed more scotch, dragged on his cigar and glanced at the copies of
Newsweek
and
US News and World Report
on his desk. He'd bought the magazines for their articles on the Westwood killings.

Goldman.

How had the chemist managed to escape again?

Turner puffed uneasily on his cigar. Goldman had obviously beaten impossible odds, what with so many people killed that night. Eight of them police officers. The killings had caused ripples in all levels of government. Many of Turner's colleagues had talked about the headline-making incident, generally concluding it was high time Uncle Sam kicked Latino ass in whatever shape or form.