Gaijin Cowgirl (16): City of angels

“In countries like this, everything is cheap…everything.”

(Previous chapter, or start at the beginning.)

BANGKOK

APRIL 2001

The flight to Bangkok took a little over two hours, but when they landed, they were in a different world, of heat and tropical decay, amiable chaos and easy smiles. By the time they packed into a taxi, Val was sweating, with the ungainly Australian trailing in silence.

“Careful there, sport,” he said as the driver slung his bag into the trunk, prompting yet another raising of the eyebrows from Suki. Her foul mood had brightened once they touched down at Don Muang but she made it clear to Val that Muddy was a strange, unwelcome addition. Val had introduced them at the boarding gate in Hong Kong, and Suki had stared at the gangly Australian with naked suspicion.

The freeway bogged down in traffic once they entered the massive downtown, giving them plenty of time to take in their new surroundings. If the metropolis of Tokyo maintained decorum and privacy behind its faceless buildings, then Bangkok was its gaudy opposite. It was a mess of a city: black skeletons of abandoned building projects shouldered shiny glass towers, squat concrete blocks mingled with shanties roofed with corrugated tin. The wats – Buddhist temples – swooped gracefully toward heaven while the poverty and pollution kept the city’s denizens firmly on earth.

The taxi driver gave them their first taste of the city’s contrasts, steering with his right hand and chatting on the cell phone in his left. As he screeched around a corner, past a giant poster of the king wearing a crisp white uniform, the driver let go of both wheel and phone to press his palms together against his nose to offer a quick prayer.

“Hey, watch it!” Val shouted.

A stomach-turning swerve and a smile from the driver to her in the rearview mirror, and they were on their way down Ratchadamri, sailing past fancy hotels and a horse track, then slowing in the face of congestion. Above them snaked the concrete Skytrain, cluttering the sky.

The taxi passed the hotels and, like a swimmer taking a quick breath, ran alongside a stretch of green. A sign above a gate read ‘Lumphini Park’.

“Lumphini!” Suki said, pointing. “That’s where Simon wants to fight one day. He told me there’s a big kickboxing stadium there.”

“What time do we meet him again?” asked Muddy from the passenger’s seat in front.

“His training ends at six, so probably around seven.”

Val said, “Well, maybe he should just join us instead of us going to him. Muddy, aren’t we meeting your friend at six?”

“In theory. Although I wouldn’t call him my friend. He’s just a journo I met many years ago who, fortunately, pretended to remember me when I rang him this morning from Hong Kong.”

“You don’t need me there, do you?” Suki said. “If you don’t mind, Val, I think it’d be easier if I just met Simon.”

Val nodded absently as the taxi turned left and followed the park, then got snarled in more traffic. The chaos of the city toyed with her nerves. She wasn’t sure if she was happy that Muddy had decided to join them in Thailand. His presence meant that this was real – that he took the map seriously and they were here to seek out buried treasure. Which meant that the danger was real, too, and it was going to follow them to Thailand. She bit a finger and tried not to think about Charlie.

Not here, she told herself, not sitting in this cramped car, I’m not going…

Suki mutely dug out a tissue from her purse and squeezed Val’s hand.

Muddy turned to face them. He saw Val’s red face and Suki’s ministrations, and turned right back around.

The taxi crept onto the giant Sathorn Road and cruised past hulking office towers. They turned off into a maze of side streets, leafy and tropically decrepit, past gold Buddha heads and tuk-tuks and crowded street stalls. A wide driveway arched up to the entrance of their formidable luxury hotel.

The lobby’s air conditioning was a relief. “Your bag?” asked a uniformed bellhop.

Val started to hand over her backpack, then froze, remembering the map inside. “No thanks, I’ll hold on to this one.”

Twenty minutes later she waited in the cool marble bathroom listening to water fill the tub. She fingered the locket around her throat. Why had her father had done so much to help her with her lunatic quest? She wanted to believe he was on her side. Hating him had become exhausting.

But. He had a lot to explain. Like how he knew Jeb Maxwell. And his womanizing, or his indifference to her mother when Val was still a teenager. The harassment when she dipped into her trust money. What was it Muddy had said about Fred Benson? He knows how to play people.

Charlie, of course, had lost the most.

“Only one way out of this,” she said, lowering herself into the bathtub. Find the gold. Make it public.

She wondered what Charlie would say.

He’d probably tell her she was nuts and to give the map to the police and go home. But then, knowing Charlie, he’d pick it up and go find the gold himself, sacrificing everything. He wasn’t like Val, just a party girl specializing in drinking games with old men and a thousand ways to flatter. Did she wish for that feeling again? Or the feeling of invincibility, fueled by some of René’s cocaine and an electronic beat?

I want to go home.

Home? The idea startled her. She looked at the locket on the counter.

Home…to Fred Benson, to a newborn half-sister, to a normal life. But not home with her tail tucked between her legs, not needy, not in defeat.

* * *

Patpong market ran in two strips between Silom and Surawong roads in the heart of downtown Bangkok. Once the sun went down, the vendors opened shop, and anything could be bought there. In the street, tourists milled through jam-packed assortments of stalls. Clothes, trinkets, wooden carvings, flowers, food, and fantasies were all for sale. Especially fantasies.

At six in the evening, the festivities were just beginning to get underway. Girls were making their way to work, the touts were urging the tourists inside to have a look at the show. Disco music thumped from go-go bars.

Val and Muddy had arrived on the Skytrain system. They walked past a Catholic nunnery, a world unto itself amid one of Bangkok’s hedonistic quarters, and navigated giant, gridlocked Silom Road to one of the market entrances.

Val caught a glimpse inside a bar, its entrance lit in garish neon. She saw a stage and poles and a cluster of skinny girls wearing high heels and bikinis.

“Gee, Muddy, you take me to all the classy joints,” she said.

She could tell Muddy was trying to look while appearing not to. “I can’t help it if we were told to meet this bloke in a bar round here. There it is.”

‘Bluegrass’ was not a girlie bar. It was situated near the mouth of Patpong’s far side on Surawong. Somewhat removed from the other bars, its interior was dark and cozy, and the brightest lights came from a TV, not a flashing neon sign. Posters of Hollywood movie stars plastered the wood paneling and John Denver sang ‘Country Road’ from the jukebox. A collection of overweight Westerners propped up the bar; the booths were mostly empty, except for one where a pudgy man, his hairline receding and his waistline advancing, was about to stuff a hamburger into his mouth.

“Carl?” Muddy asked.

The hamburger returned to its plate. “Mr. McKenzie?” he asked in a nasal voice.

“The same.” Muddy and Val slid into the booth across from Carl, who pressed his round glasses back up his nose. They shook hands. “And this is Val, the lady I mentioned.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Carl Breikstadt,” the man said to her. Turning his attention back to Muddy, he added, “I do remember you.”

“Uh, likewise,” Muddy replied, his hesitation suggesting otherwise.

“You got in today?” Carl asked.

“That’s right,” Muddy said. “And I appreciate you coming out to meet us on such short notice.”

“You’re lucky, Mr. McKenzie. I’m going on vacation tomorrow. Songkran runs the rest of the week, and I’m taking the wife to the beach.”

“You’re a reporter?” Val asked. She had imagined someone younger, a little more vigorous.

“Not anymore,” Carl said, pushing up his glasses again. “They promoted me into the purgatory of a desk job. Now I’m the news editor. My office is just around the corner from here.”

“You’re American?” Val said.

“No. I’m originally from Toronto. You’re from the States, I take it?”

“Yes, upstate New York, originally.”

“Well, we’re practically neighbors then. First time to Thailand?”

She nodded.

“Welcome to Krung Thep – the city of angels, as the Thais call this place.” He signaled to the Thai woman behind the bar. “Nim, can I get another Chang?”

“Uh, can I have a glass of white wine?” Val asked.

The woman nodded and looked at Muddy. He licked his lips. “I’ll have a Coke, please.”

Carl said, “I dug up the interview I did with you back in Ninety-Three. You were fresh off your testifying before the US Congress about Yamashita’s gold and how Marcos got it. The Congressman who led the inquiry was named Fred Benson. He’s still in office. From New York state.” He looked at Val. “And your name again was, miss?”

“Val Benson.”

“Yes, that’s what I thought Mr. McKenzie had said.”

“You put things together quick,” Muddy said. “She’s his daughter.”

Their drinks arrived. “Thanks, Nim,” Carl said to the waitress pouring him a beer from the large bottle. He fished change from his pocket. “Say, darling, can you put on that Hank Williams song for me? You know the one I like.”

The waitress took the coin. “Okay, Carl.”

He took a massive bite of his hamburger, pushed his glasses up his nose again, and said, “So. More tales of Japanese war gold?”

“Yeah,” Muddy replied, “that’s the one.”

Val said, “I was working in a businessman’s club in Tokyo. My best tipper was involved in stealing treasure from Asia during the war. He served all over, including here. I’ve come into possession of one of his maps. Muddy knows how to read these things, and he says it points to a site in this country, near the border.”

Carl smiled politely as ‘Your Cheatin Heart’ echoed through the bar. “Uh hunh,” he said, “I see.”

“Believe me,” Val said, “I’ve been through enough to know this is genuine. And not because of my father, either. That’s just a coincidence. He’s the one who recommended I find Muddy.”

“And she did – last night,” Muddy said. “I’ve heard the whole story, and I’ve seen the map, and it’s fair dinkum. I didn’t leave a paying job in Hong Kong on a whim.”

“Coincidence, huh?” said Carl.

“Yes,” she replied. “One hundred percent.”

“Okay, so why come to me? I’m just an editor of an English daily. I don’t know anything about this stuff.”

“I want to find the gold,” Val began.

“Of course.”

“Not to keep it or to sell it, but to expose it, make it public.”

Carl pushed his glasses up. “You’re a good Samaritan.”

“You mocking me, Carl?” she asked.

The editor shrugged. “Look, I’m here because Mr. McKenzie has credibility, or at least he did a decade ago. But we get a lot of stories like this. There was this senator who recently told the world he had found Japanese war gold in a cave near the Myanmar border.”

“I told her about that,” Muddy said.

Val pressed on. “We want a journalist to come with us. We want to pinpoint the location, excavate, and let everyone know. If it becomes government property afterwards, that’s fine by us.”

Muddy said, “I’m in it for a percentage. The woman has her own reasons.”

“You I believe,” Carl said to him. “As for you, Miss Benson, I appreciate what you think you’re trying to do. But I don’t think I can spare a reporter to go with you into the jungle. We’re spread too thin as it is. What you’re asking would involve expenses and time, and I don’t see this as a story. If the gold is really there, sure we’ll go, if you get someone to verify it. Besides, we’ve recently done a few stories about treasure hoaxes, and it’s getting a little tired.”

“This isn’t a hoax!” Val blurted. “There are men, Japanese and Americans, who want this map. They tried to kill me.”

“But I don’t know how I can help you at this point.”

“Look at my face!” she hissed, pointing at the scar on her left cheek. “They cut me!”

Carl raised two fat palms. “Calm down, Miss Benson. I didn’t say you’re a liar. I said I can’t allocate resources to something that to me is not ready to become a story. You’ve got your treasure hunter here. If Mr. McKenzie finds something for real, please come back to me, and I’ll stick it on the front page and run it every day until the prime minister himself gets involved.”

“How long you on holiday?” Muddy asked.

“A week.”

“Well, there’s something else we need. Good maps detailing who owns what around there. Your people know how to dig up that kind of information?”

“Some of my reporters can. It requires a lot of time bugging the Ministry of the Interior, the land registrar and a couple of other offices.”

“What I reckoned,” Muddy mused. “Needs the local touch. If I gave you coordinates, how long would it take to do that?”

“Well, Songkran starts tomorrow. That’s the Thai new year. Nothing will be open until next week. I’d say ten business days. But we’re not that kind of service. I’m not going to send a reporter out to do that legwork when I’ve got other stories I need covered.”

“How about this,” Val said. “If you were to assign a reporter to this story, let’s just assume you were prepared to do that, do you know who it would be? And maybe we could meet the reporter while you’re away, get some groundwork covered now?”

“What’s the point?”

“Maybe the reporter will like the story.”

“Miss Benson,” he said, his voice acquiring an edge, “I’m the guy who decides the stories we run.”

“If you help Muddy out with the information he needs, we’ll give you the exclusive,” Val said. “No other papers. No Time magazine. No CNN. How’s that?”

Muddy put a hand on the editor’s arm. “Carl, listen to me. I lost my job and probably my girl to follow Val. Now why would I do that?”

Carl rubbed his two chins. “Tell you what. The person you want is Jiraporn, who’s networked this town better than Thai Telecom. Good ministerial connections, and contacts upcountry too. Jira’s bored covering Songkran holiday stuff – we’ve been investigating the prime minister but the heat came down and we’re putting that project on pause. Come here tomorrow at the same time, and I’ll tell Jira to stop by. It’ll be her call.”

Val beamed. “That’s great, Carl. Thank you so much.”

“Like I said, Miss Benson, your friend Mr. McKenzie has credentials in this business – and treasure hunting is one of those occupations where real credentials count for pretty much everything.”

“Too right,” Muddy said.

“So I only ask you that you don’t give my people a hard time if they’re busy.” He got up and put a few notes on the table. “Now I have to get back to the office. If you’re feeling hungry, try the sirloin. Nim’ll take care of you.”

Val and Muddy finished their drinks and left. The Canadian had already disappeared into the throng of tourists and touts, hawkers and gawkers. Neon signs – Lipstick Bar, Pussy Galore Bar, Super Girl Bar, Thigh Bar – winked pink and blue.

“Well, what do you think?” Val said.

“I think I feel like Thai food.”

“Come on, let’s get dinner.”

They wandered out of crazy Patpong back to cramped Silom Road, and found a trendy-looking restaurant overlooking the street. “I can’t believe how cheap this place is,” Val said, perusing the menu.

Muddy nodded. “In countries like this, everything is cheap…everything.”

They ate spicy glass noodles, fiery hot tom yum soup and grilled fish in lemongrass, and washed it down with fresh lime sodas. Val’s tongue burned. She cried from the chilis and Muddy chuckled.

“I’m not used to this stuff,” Val said. “It’s good, but damn.” She fanned her open mouth.

“Steamed white rice absorbs the heat,” Muddy suggested.

Val took his advice and watched this old Australian ostrich eat his dinner, eyes occasionally flickering out to the madness out the windo..

“Why did you come with us, Muddy?”

“What do you think?”

“We’ve known each other for about twenty-four hours, and here we are together in Bangkok. You just dropped everything.”

“At your request.”

“Yeah, I know. But what changed your mind?”

He stared at his plate. “I had something in Hong Kong I had never found before in my life. A good woman who kept me clean. A steady job that kept me fed. Hobbies, for Christ’s sake. I know I ought to feel thankful. I know my previous life, rotting in that stinking jungle with mud up to my neck, surrounded by trigger-happy morons toting M-16s…my previous life made me a zombie. It wasn’t a fit life for a man to live. But…”

“Something in you misses it?”

“I know I’ll regret coming with you, Val, but not now, not yet.”

They finished their meal and Val paid the bill. “I figured you were just being greedy,” she said.

Silom Road seemed to get only more crowded with nightfall. The office buildings had emptied, the workers dallying at the roadside stalls to shop or eat before braving the traffic. The incessant street traffic drowned out the rumble of the Skytrain overhead. Pop music blared from shops, tourists picked their way over the crumbling sidewalk, the blood of the city circulated quicker than before.

“And what about you?” Muddy said.

“Me? I’ve told you everything.”

“Carl asked you about you and your dad. Interesting.”

“Come on,” she said, taking his arm. A red light had momentarily frozen traffic, and she led him across the hot boulevard toward Patpong. “I’ve never seen a place like this before. Take me to have a look.”

“What?”

“Sure, why not? I’m curious. Don’t try to play shy now, Muddy. Come on, I’ll buy you a Coke.”

“You’re just evading my question.”

“No, I’m not,” she replied. “I’m asking myself the same thing.”

They reentered Patpong, Muddy keeping his hands stuck in his pockets, looking as noncommittal as possible.

“Which one do you want to try?”

“You’re the one who wanted to come here.”

She smiled mischievously. “Muddy, you’re the guy. Pick a bar you like and let’s go.”

“Well, um, this one’ll do.” From the nearby doorway came something like an octopus, eight naked arms outstretched. The girls pulled Muddy inside, and they latched on to Val too. Slender, beautiful girls wearing white lingerie that, along with their big smiles, glowed purplish in the bar’s black lights. Each had a plastic number pinned to her panties. Dance music shook the bar, a horseshoe of elevated tables around a stage where a dozen girls with deadened eyes bounced on their heels.

It was early in the evening, so there were only a few other patrons, small clusters of Western and Chinese men. A middle-aged Western couple sat by the door, husband and wife clinking glasses with a couple of girls. The girls maintained a certain decorum because of the wife, much to the chagrin of the husband, who looked enviously across at a group of white men bouncing giggling girls on their knees. In another corner, a girl sat beside a Chinese customer, both looking absolutely bored.

Muddy and Val parted from the girls at the entrance and sat high along the wall, looking down at the stage. An older woman in a cheap, bland uniform asked them for their drink order.

Val ordered a beer. “I’ll just have a Coke,” Muddy said.

“Buy girl a drink?” the server asked.

“Uh, not now,” Muddy said, “maybe later.”

The server smiled. “Buy me a drink?”

Muddy chuckled. “Not tonight.”

“I didn’t take you for the teetotaler type,” Val said.

“I told you already that I quit. I’m an alcoholic.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t be embarrassed. Have your beer. I’ve learned to live with visiting the pub without going on a boozer.”

“I feel bad dragging you into a bar though.”

“Really,” he said, eyeing the stage, “don’t. And let’s stop talking about it, and me.”

“Okay.”

“Okay. So, uh, Val, before you came into possession of one very dangerous map, just what did you do for a living?”

“You know what I did. I was a hostess.”

Two girls on the floor walked over. Val guessed they couldn’t have been more than eighteen, and were probably younger. She had seen plenty of men react to beautiful, accommodating women – and those had been ones wearing clothes. She knew that Muddy would rather have been there by himself.

“Let them sit,” she said. “It’s a girlie bar after all.”

Their drinks came, and then they let the girls order for themselves. A pretty one sat beside Val. They toasted – “Chok dee,” said the girl, ‘good luck’ – and drank. Then came a short litany that Val had come to know well, but from the other side. What is your name? Where are you from? How long are you staying here? What is your job? The same boring questions that presaged flings all over the world, in bars where one party had come for fun and the other for work.

Muddy turned from his girl to say, “Excuse, me, Val, what was your job again?”

“Hostess.”

“In Japan?”

“I got to wear a seductive dress and sing karaoke and play drinking games and tell middle-aged men how handsome they were. I got to light their cigarettes and pour their whiskey and laugh at their jokes. The rich ones took me out for dinners or to the theater, and sometimes they gave me presents. It was fun, for a while.”

“That’s how you met this Takahashi?”

“Yeah. He was a big spender. He liked me.”

“And did you like him?”

“For a while, Muddy, I actually did.” She looked at the girl beside her, who smiled. “How much money you make?”

The girl just smiled back. “Drink more?”

Val shrugged. “Sure, let’s get another round. It’s your living.”

“You like girl?”

Val shook her head. To Muddy she said, “I never had to sleep with a client. It was against the club’s rules, in fact. So don’t get the wrong idea.”

But as she sat silently beside her girl, she wondered. Cowboy had been upscale, not tacky like this place, and for the foreign girls, quitting was always an option. But for women like Suki, that option wasn’t so obvious. They played an assigned role in a hierarchical society – just like the go-go dancer sitting beside Val.

And wasn’t she just lying to herself anyway? Sure, she never slept with a customer. But she had shed her clothes for Takahashi. Not to have sex, but for that old man, maybe painting her crotch counted as the same thing. Face it, Val told herself, the money was bigger, the job was full of civilized niceties and fancy notions, but it merely a variation of a theme. This girl asking her if she wanted to buy her out for an hour or a night of sex was many rungs down, but it was the same ladder.

“I never assumed anything about being a hostess,” Muddy said.

Val paused, then: “I think I’ve had enough.”

“You want to leave now?”

“Stay, Muddy. Have fun. This music is giving me a headache.”

“I don’t want to stay here without you.”

She gave him a hard smile. “Muddy, I really don’t care what you do, okay? It’s a man’s world, right?”

“Don’t patronize me. This place was your idea.”

She rubbed her temples. “Yeah, I guess I did. Sorry.”

“Orright then. Sit down.”

“Good night.” She ignored his protest and tossed some baht on the table.

* * *

Muddy hurriedly paid the bill and went out looking for Val, but the American had already found a taxi on Surawong and disappeared.

“Bloody hell.” She was volatile, that one. If this woman wanted his help, she had better treat him with a little respect.

He found a taxi, thinking he should return to the hotel, just to prove the point. But when he got in the back seat, he remained quiet, as the taxi was still stuck in traffic, and the driver asked, “No like Patpong?”

“Not tonight.”

“You want massage?”

“What?”

“Here,” said the driver, passing back a brochure. It featured a room full of nubile women wearing numbers, and then photos of Westerners sharing bubbly tubs with naked girls.

“Uh, no thanks…”

“You want sex show? Live, two girl, three girl, many girl.”

“Not tonight.”

“Maybe you like boy. You want see sex show with boy?”

“No.”

The car rolled forward. “Where you go mister?”

Damn that woman, he thought, but his thoughts returned to the delightful girl he had just been sitting with, whose fingers had caressed his thigh. Why was he rushing to the hotel just to prove an irrelevant point to Valerie Benson? He was in Bangkok, and indeed it was a city of angels: sexy, naughty angels.

“Nana Plaza,” he said.

“Okay, Nana…”

Nana Plaza off Sukhimvit Road was a courtyard of sin, three levels of go-go bars and sex shows surrounding an open bar area: a rougher, harder place where female tourists did not stray. The bars were heaving as Muddy alighted from his taxi. He brushed past a mahout selling bananas to feed to the baby elephant by the entrance. “Hello, feed Baby? Twenty baht…”

Inside, the cacophony of dozens of bars filled the courtyard. Muddy hadn’t been here in years, but the air crackled with the same sexual electricity. He…he…yes, he loved this grotty place. It reminded him of the old days.

And then he felt another sensation remembered from those times, from the gilded cage of Manila to the highlands of Luzon to the jungles of Mindanao. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

He whirled around, confused. What was that feeling? Was that what it was like? It was the same twinge he had felt looking out from his apartment in the middle of the night and seeing that man in the dai pai dong across the street.

The eye of an elephant stared back.

Yes, it was his intuition of being watched. But could he trust it? Was he just being paranoid? Christ, McKenzie, you’re so rusty. You’re mixed up. That American woman’s set you off.

He couldn’t trust it.

Val said no one had followed her…what the hell did she know? The girl waved that damn map around everywhere she went.

Someone is watching, trailing….

Then the sensation passed, leaving him back in the belly of Nana Plaza, surrounded by a miasma of disco beats and beckoning whores. He looked in a bar and saw girls on the stage, wearing only heels, cowboy hats, and the tightest little denim hot pants he had ever seen. And they wiggled their hips with the zippers undone.

“In the final words of Ned Kelly,” he declared, “‘Such is life!’” He followed the smiles inside.

(Next chapter.)