Chapter Eleven

Eleven

Lonny closed the door to Pearl's apartment, removed his shoes and by the soft glow of the ice cream freezers interior light stepped to the bed and sat on the edge looking through the glass panel at her face, tilted slightly towards her shoulder as if at rest. Her skin almost impossibly white against the red silk she reclined against. He slid the panel open and ran his fingers over her jaw line and across her cheek that seemed carved from alabaster, cold to the touch, hard, smooth and flawless.

The condensing air rose again like breath and Lonny lay back on the bed and consulted with her.

‘Now she, you know Toy, she’s kidnapped the kid. She was telling me about it, then we go outside and her two body guards or whatever they are, they’re waiting for us, so I say maybe they can give me a lift since her car is so small. She walks over to the Mercedes you know and knocks on the trunk and I hear banging and mumbling from inside cause they got him in there already. I’m glad they didn’t open the thing cause I didn’t want to look at him, you know?

I don’t know what she thinks she can get out of his family, I mean this is the kind of thing, you know if they want to, they call the FBI, you know, they find out anything they want. Yea, she’s got the police working for her here and everything but I seen it a hundred times on T.V. where the FBI busts everyone. Am I talking too fast?’

Lonny paused, his eyes were closing, he dipped his hand into the freezer and stroked Pearls icy hair than let his fingers wander down her jaw line to her neck and followed that to the double arabesque of her collarbones which led to the dip of her sternum and through the frozen valley of her breasts.

‘Good thing is though she agreed to get you a booking, air freight. No two month trip for you honey, we’ll get you to JFK in a couple days, then I’ll be there right after, you’ll be fine. Don’t think it's gonna be like this when we get back to Great Beach either. I don’t know any criminals, don’t hang out with people involved in this kind of stuff, this isn’t what I do. I don’t imagine Jerry’s gonna want anything to do with me after all this, but I keep those emails Toy gave me and he’ll come across with the money he promised and the pension and we’ll have nothing to do but relax and watch TV and go down to the beach in the summer. Maybe get a little boat and do some fishing. Do you like to fish? I go in the summer, just surf casting.’

He drifted off as his words became thoughts, smiling at the ceiling, his hand resting against Pearl's icy bosom.

*

When he woke in the still dark morning he closed Pearl’s freezer and took a cold shower using one of her half sized towels to dry himself. He poured himself a glass of the orange juice he bought the day before, turned on the desk side lamp and studied the freezer, measuring it by eye. He found a small note pad and a pen and made a rough three dimensional sketch of the size and then wrote out a material list.

He figured a couple sheets of plywood, some two by and one by fours, two sheets of styro insulation, screws, a drill driver, a saw and some wood glue. At a home store in New York the whole thing would be around $350. He took the roll of cash from his pocket and counted it out realizing he had only spent something like two hundred of the two thousand dollars he had changed into the funny pink money.

He left the room without saying good bye to Pearl, not wanting to bother her. He made the now familiar walk to seven eleven and got his breakfast hotdog and coffee and stood in front of the store front blowing over the top of the coffee and wondering how he was going to get the materials he needed when the first cab pulled up. ‘Where you go?’The driver blurted from the window?

Lonny had a mouth full of dog and waved the guy off, not wanting to go anywhere just yet, but then thought better of it and rushed over to the window waving his coffee cup.

‘You speak English?’ Lonny choked.

‘Where you go?’The driver asked again.

‘Do you speak English?’Lonny repeated.

‘Little bit, where you want to go?’

‘I need to buy some wood, some wood and construction stuff, to build something, you get it?' Lonny made a hammering motion with his hotdog.

‘The driver nodded, You want lady?’

‘No, I want a lumber yard or something?’

‘You pay how much?’

‘For the wood? I don’t know how much does wood cost?’

‘Where you go?’The driver asked again.

‘Never mind.’

‘Where you want to go?’ The driver demanded

‘How the hell should I know? You’re the taxi where do I buy wood?’

The driver turned his head and grimaced and Lonny made a wiping motion as if to signal the man away who then leaned from the window and yelled, ‘fuck you’ as he drove off.

But he had given Lonny an idea, so he stood at the curb and stopped the early prowling taxis, one after the other until he found a driver that spoke sufficient English to understand what he wanted and get him to the right place.

The driver told Lonny he couldn’t get everything in one store, they didn’t have any home centers or super stores in Bangkok like in America but there was a wood district and he should be able to find everything he needed there.

Lonny imagined walking around some place asking for wood glue and a skill saw while a bunch of squatting Thais grimaced at him and squawked to one another like when he bought the freezer.

‘How about you come with me? Can I hire you to help me out for an hour or so, and then take me back here?’

The driver nodded and tapped the meter, ‘Leave it running OK?’

After a snail's paced progression across the congested city they parked along a busy road that seemed almost exactly like the rest of the city Lonny had seen. The same heavily secured three and four story shop houses selling random items in an ad hoc way. 
Sidewalks over run by food hawkers, stacks of boxes and motor scooters that poured out of repair shops. But above the omnipresent smells of hot oil and garbage rot he could just taste the sweet scent of fresh cut wood wafting.

They went a block and then under a tall arch into a narrow side street where suddenly all commerce was centered on the cutting, carving, shaping, and various constructions of wood.

Lonny had listed all the materials he needed, but the driver wanted to know what he intended to build and so Lonny explained. Then the driver wanted to know why, and so Lonny told him he needed to send some stuff home and the driver wanted to know what and how much it would cost and how he would he send it? Finally frustrated with him, Lonny went silent but the driver laughed and told him never mind and led him to a shop where he said they could get everything he needed.

The ply panels were little more than Luan, the stock wood was rock hard and irregular as if cut by hand with a vague standard in mind. The saw was a cheap and dangerous looking thing and the drill driver felt as if it had about two hours of working life in it. They bundled it all together, the lumber cut roughly to size by the stores gofer. The tools and other materials bound together with pink plastic string and carried to the pickup of a delivery man that hung around the place for just such odd jobs.

At Pearl's apartment he paid off his driver and guide who left in a storm of salutations and wishes for good luck and he and the delivery man carried the goods to the apartment. The older man was thin but strong and handled the loads in a steady continuous pace while Lonny rushed, panting and straining on the stairs hoping to get everything up and in the apartment before he ran into any of the other residents. When they had finished and Lonny was drenched in his own pouring sweat and even the old man was damp around the face they both had a bottle of cold water in the door way and smiled and nodded to each other as two men who have shared work but no common language will.

The old man started to examine the room curiously, recognizing the disconnect between the pop music posters and lace materials draped around the place and the man before him. Lonny shoved a sheaf of bills in his hand and firmly pushed him into the hall, tapping his wrist watch to show he had no time, and then followed him out to his truck waving as he pulled away.

He returned to Seven Eleven, bought another hot dog and something called a chicken steak burger, a gray slab of chewy meat product that tasted of hot spice and processed fat, along with a bottle of electrolyte drink and an ice cream. He stood in the air conditioned store eating his lunch and roamed the aisles noting the exotic array of Japanese and Thai mass produced snack products. Before leaving he picked up a CD that featured an androgynous looking, big eyed boy on the cover that he thought Pearl would like.

Back at the apartment Lonny spent the afternoon trying to piece together the crate that would ship Pearl's freezer to the other side of the world. Two decades of lifting, moving, opening and shifting crates gave him the idea that he had by some process of labor intensive osmosis gained the knowledge to assemble one. It was after all just a box, a simple cube of six sides. Wood panels closed around like sized sheets of styro-foam, held together by screws.

After four hours he had connected the perimeter walls to the floor and though they weren’t all exactly the same size and none of the comers were square he felt he had accomplished something until he realized that he couldn’t get the freezer inside. The front panel needed to come off, but he couldn’t see how he could reattach it to the floor once the freezer was inside.

He was exhausted and his clothes were sopping again. He sat on the edge of the bed and stripped down for another shower. There was no water heater in the little bathroom but at the end of the day the water came out near to scalding from the heat of the sun and so Lonny let it run for a while sitting naked on the toilet thinking about going out and finding a place that served a good steak and cold beer when he heard an intermittent buzzing sound.

He listened closely to the pulsing, grinding sound. Dread washed over him, thinking that the compressor in the freezer was dying, that he would have to get another and move Pearl out of the spot where she had grown comfortable. He traced it by ear, it was coming from the bed or the desk. Searching, he saw the screen light up on the phone Toy had given him. ‘Thank Christ,’ He mumbled picking it up, fumbling for the talk button.

‘Lonny, why aren’t you write back to me! I sent you too many text.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t know.’

‘You must to check the phone all the time. So what you doing now?’

‘ I was just going to have a shower, thinking about going out to get something to eat.’

‘Never mind, Lek already waiting you downstairs, now he will take you to the police to be help with some boy, boy not man, who have disappear.’

‘Yeah, Ok, I still need to shower. Wait Lek’s where now? I’m not at my hotel.’

‘I know, he in front of your girlfriend room.’

The air went out of his lungs and his stomach flopped, he banged his head against the desk.

‘Don’t hit you head’

He stopped, and held the phone in front of his face, staring at it. ‘Okay see you later, bye bye,’ She chirped and hung up.

The car was illegally parked just in front of the entrance to Pearls building, jamming up traffic for blocks but no one seemed to care. No one flashed lights, no honking, nothing. In New York this kind of behavior would have led to bloodshed in minutes. Lonny imagined the cars, finally squeezing by the driver, passengers screaming abuse through open windows. Throwing garbage and eventually someone would stop, get out and start hammering on the tinted windows looking for a fight. Maybe because everyone else here would do the same thing they don’t mind when it happens to them, or maybe it was just bad form for the other drivers to yell, somehow. They would lose face. John The Complainer had explained to him the complicated social conventions of respect and disrespect but the idea meant nothing to him and he didn’t bother to try and understand.

The car was icy inside and Lonny took the front seat for the first time. Lek smiled at him and made an exaggerated show of examining Lonny’s face for fresh bruises and scuffs.

‘Not today buddy, or at least not yet.’

‘My name Lek.’ The goon smiled.

‘Yeah, my name's mud.’ Lonny retorted.

Lek’s puzzlement showed as creases between his eyes.

‘Ronny?’

‘Yeah that’s right, same thing.’

‘Same same.’ Lek smiled.

Lonny nodded and looked out the window, cutting their exchange short. They weren’t friends, he was a criminal thug and it had only been two days since the man was beating him on the kidneys. Lek started the car, turned on some soft pop station and cut off the line of choked traffic as he swept the wheel with the palm of his hand.

They arrived at a modern glass and steel building secured like a fortress behind a high reinforced concrete wall topped with concertina wire which had turrets’ at each corner manned by men in black uniforms holding very serious looking guns that Lonny didn’t recognize. Lek escorted him to a desk at the entrance of the building where he quickly exchanged a couple of words with the man behind it and then turned and walked out without further acknowledging him.

Someone called out ‘have a seat’ and Lonny sat in one of a row of uncomfortable plastic chairs. He took the phone from his pocket and scrolled through the texts Toy had sent him which consisted of three downloaded videos of kittens playing with the caption ‘CUTEST EVER!!!’ under each one. Then a series of smiley faced emoticons that may have been a code or simply a waste of time and finally a GIFF of a young woman deep-throating the wide end of a baseball bat in a jerky loop.

‘Mr. Doyle?’

Lonny stood to meet the young, clean cut, well dressed Caucasian.

‘Thank you for coming’

Lonny pocketed the phone and took the extended hand.

‘I’m Brent Lorne assistant US consul, I appreciate you coming in.’

‘Yeah sure.’ Lonny tried to speak clearly but his answer was mumbled and shaky.

‘Follow me.’

Brent turned and went to the inner door, paused to let it buzz, opened it and waited for Lonny to pass through.

They walked the immaculate hall and Lonny noted that this was nothing like the low rent police station he and John had been locked up in. This place was modern, hi- tech; purpose built for its specific function. It wasn’t what Lonny had expected and now the US government was involved.

Brent led Lonny to a room with a conference table and six leather desk chairs, each with a phone and a monitor in front of it. There was a single window in the door and a mirror on the back wall that Lonny suspected from his understanding of television shows was two way. They sat, Lonny at the end and Brent to his right where he flashed a smile exposing a row of wide, white teeth that set off his emerald eyes and the swath of soft looking chestnut hair that swept across his forehead.

‘You Ok, can I get you something?’

‘No I’m good, just, kind of a strange situation, little nervous I guess.’

‘Believe me we appreciate you interrupting your trip, is this business or pleasure for you?’

‘Pleasure.’

‘Vacation?’

‘I came to visit an old army buddy.’ Lonny recited from his prepared script.

‘That’s right you were in the army,1978 to 1984- never foreign posted.’

‘Yup.’

‘I did a little check on you.’ Brent measured the effort between thumb and forefinger at about a half inch.

‘It turned out to be good luck that you lost your passport, I mean, amazing luck really, being from Great Beach and all.’

‘Uh huh’

‘So as you know we have a young guy kidnapped, from your home town. A... Tanner Bloodwright, Hofstra student here as a volunteer with a women's health NGO. Do you happen to know him, or his family?’

‘No, nope’ Lonny shook his head, getting the feeling that the young consul suspected him.

‘Well it could be a comfort to the family having you here, disinterested party to keep an eye on us bureaucrats, hometown guy, all that.’

‘Emm,’ Lonny hummed, thinking that if he could stick to mono syllabic answers he wouldn’t screw himself.

‘We have a demand from the kidnappers, proof of life, and a system to convey the payment, a very modest ransom really. They are definitely pro’s though. Probably did their research, most likely connected. I’m advising the parents they should go ahead and pay it. This is Thailand after all.’ Brent shrugged and nodded at the door and rolled his eyes as three older men in uniforms entered and began speaking in Thai which Brent took in and answered with the same caroming tones and throat clearing grunts.

‘Lonny this is Major General Polithup Solitwancha, and Colonels Thatchawa Thersuvda and Derina Eckrachai.’

Lonny nodded while the three men sat.‘So let’s make the call shall we?’ Brent suggested, causing the uniformed men to frown.

‘When you’re ready of course.’ He added, throwing Lonny another derisive look.

The three officers lit cigarettes, conversed among themselves quietly, the oldest looking up to sneer at Brent in between long drags on his smoke.

After each snubbed his butt in the same ashtray they silently consented. Brent nodded and dialed the number. Each of the speaker phones were active and the room filled with an echoic digitized ringing from America until it was broken when a woman’s voice answered breezily ‘Hello.’

Brent laid out the facts to Mrs. Bloodwright straight forwardly and almost without pause. After he had told her the amount demanded and the system they had in place for the exchange he introduced Lonny and turned the conversation over to him with a smile and a finger gun point.

‘Hello, hello?’ Mrs. Bloodwright yelled from across the planet, verging on hysteria.

Brent nodded at Lonny, who shrugged and shook his head no. Brent nodded again, urging him to speak up. Lonny held off for another moment, on the other end Mrs. Bloodwright was calling for her husband. It was about seven a.m. On the Island, the sun was up, and the air would be warming, a clear salt smelling spring day.

‘Hello’ Lonny answered.

‘Who’s that, who are you?’

‘This is Lonny Doyle, from Wyoming street.’

‘Who? Who the fuck are you, is this some kind of fucking joke? You pervert I’ll cut your fucking balls off and shove them up your ass.’

The three officers looked to each other, shocked and disgusted, the oldest lit another cigarette. Brent backed away from the phone base as if it might strike him.

‘Uh no Mrs Bloodwright, this aint a joke, I’m really here, they- the police here they asked me to come and talk to you cause I live in Great Beach, and they asked, said it would be a comfort if I came, to talk to you.’

‘What the fuck are you talking about? Jack, where’s Tanner? Jack god damn it, put Tanner on the god damned fucking phone.’

Lonny opened his hands to Brent who waved him away and then with two twirling fingers motioned he should keep talking.

Lonny gritted his teeth, on the other end Mrs. Bloodwright continued to scream for her husband.

‘No Mrs. Bloodwright, Tanners not here, the police told me he was kidnapped, the uh consul is here maybe you should talk to him.’ Brent jumped out of his chair and silently mouthing ‘No’, waved his hands.

Mrs. Bloodwright howled into the phone, suddenly sobbing and moaning.‘I told him not to go there, I told him. I pleaded with him, after everything that happened, I begged. I read it all on the internet, I told him.’

Her voice faded into a choppy whine.

‘They have their best people here working on the case Mrs. Bloodwright, They’re going to find your son, I mean they’ll find him, they probably already know, something.’ Lonny spoke softly.

‘Shut up, who the fuck are you? Why are you talking to me, what are you doing there you filthy pedophile scumbag piece of shit. I hope your cock falls off and rots in the sewer you faggot.’

There was a dull thud, Mrs. Bloodwright's condemnations fell to the back ground and a level, serious male voice came on.

‘This is Jack Bloodwright, what’s the situation?’

Brent took his seat and gave Lonny the thumbs up as he reclaimed the conversation. He professionally ran Mr. Bloodwright through the porcess who responded in calm and calculating tones while firing off logical questions about time differences, exchange rates and transfer fees.

When all was done the Thai police left without a word. Brent reached over and patted Lonny on the shoulder.

‘We're done for now, thanks a million, you were great. The US Consular service would like to put you up for the night as a thank you. We got you a room just about five minutes away at the Bangkok Supreme Regency Reserve, which is a nice place. Room service, extras, it’s all on us.’

‘Uh, no it’s alright, I got a room.’

Brent made a face, pinching his mouth in a one sided smile and put his hands out to Lonny palms up.

‘We kinda, gotta insist. You see in a kidnap case like this, anyone involved has got to be sequestered until the thing is resolved.’

‘What? But I didn’t do nothing. I mean that woman screamed at me for a minute and then, well that was it.’

‘You see, you got me off the hook there, let the frantic wife get it out of her system and then switch over to the husband to work out the details, she hates you, but me, I’m just here to help. A little diversion to make things easy for us. You depressurized the whole thing.’

Brent turned his smile up to full beam and the green of his eyes blazed against the warm glow of his smoothly tanned skin. ‘I don’t want to stay man, I have a place.’

‘I’m afraid we have to insist.’ Brent nodded.

‘I got someone waiting for me, what the hell kind of shit is this? I come down here to give a hand, and this, you do this to me.’ Lonny’s tone turned defiant.

Brent’s vanilla ice cream persona melted away as he leaned in close and with a menacing look said in a hate whisper that sprayed Lonny’s cheek with spittle, ‘You aren’t doing anyone any favors asshole go out and get in that fucking car.’The words were like another beating. Another of Toy's tentacles revealed. Lonny turned without a word and with no doubt that Lek would be waiting for him at the door.

‘Enjoy your evening Mr. Doyle.’ Brent called, his face changed back instantly as if he had peeled away the Boy Scout mask he wore for just a second, revealing the truth beneath and as quickly smoothed it back on and the transformation scared the shit out of Lonny.

*

The car was pulled up to the front with the engine running and this time Lonny got in back. Lek pulled away without any attempt at conversation and drove him the short distance to the front of a towering hotel where a bell man opened his door and another followed him to reception in-lieu of carrying his bags.

He was taken to his room and shown all of the amenities that a real hotel provides. With the recessed lights blazing, the flat screen and its 100 channels projecting a crystal clear picture. The silent A/C sending out waves of clean cool air and the blackout curtains opened so Lonny could enjoy a view of the city lights, the bell hop bowed his way out of the room.

Lonny dropped onto the bed. This is what he had been missing. What he had in fact been promised. What he should have been able to get for himself. The linens felt miraculously soft and clean under his hands. The air was clear and noticeably disease free. He rolled back and forth on the king-sized bed forking his high-tops off with his toes.

After a long, hot shower in the spotless bathroom he toweled off with a thick white towel that easily wrapped his girth. Sitting on the bed, in a bathrobe of the same rich material he flicked channels on the huge TV and ordered the first room service meal of his life, the steak he had been craving fromwhat now seemed days earlier and two Buds.

The room was perfect, if only Pearl could be there to enjoy it with him. It would be no problem bringing the freezer up. Surely there were large freight elevators running in the unseen guts of the place where with a couple well placed tips he could get her freezer to the room. She would be impressed by the luxury of the place. She’d probably never stayed anywhere like it. He’d never stayed anywhere like it.

He flicked through stations showing movies and wildlife programs mostly over dubbed in Thai, some in English and a few in other languages that he didn’t pause at long enough to make a guess at. There were places he could take her once they got back home. They couldn’t fly but he could work it out with his car, maybe customize the trunk with insulation and a kind of hyper air conditioner. Atlantic City, he had never been, wasn’t a gambler, but they had shows and concerts and she’d probably like that. Or to the mountains, Vermont or New Hampshire, he had never been there either. Already it seemed as if Pearl was opening the world up to him.

As he lie on the bed mentally exploring the eastern states with Pearl visiting farm towns and forests and snowy mountains; the door bell chimed.

He opened the door and a young woman in a silk uniform rolled the cart in saying ‘room service sir’, and asked, ‘where can I put it?’ looking away in her servitude.

‘Just on the table there,’ Lonny pointed to the glass topped dining table with two chairs as he went to his pants for some tip money. The girl was laying out dishes and bowls and silver ware and glasses and an ice bucket with a bottle protruding from the top from the service trolley.

‘Hey wait a minute you got the wrong room there, I didn’t order all this.’

The girl turned and leapt forward throwing her head back and yelled ‘Surprise?’

Toy was dressed in the hotel's uniform with her hair up in pins under a little maid’s cap and wearing glasses as well.

Lonny stood agog holding one of the pink bills in his hand.

‘I was coming to see you and they told me you order some room service already so I played-the-joke!’

Toy pulled the long dress over her head to reveal high waisted mini shorts that read JUICY FUN across the ass and a spaghetti strap shirt that clung tightly to her torso.

When she had shaken her hair out and adjusted the tight cut of the shorts out of her crotch she looked up and sneered. ‘What’s wrong, you angry I came here.’

‘It’s a big surprise.’ Lonny said sitting back down on the bed.

‘Don’t be grumpy. Look I brought so much nice food and some good wine, and some tequila, let’s get drunk and go swimming Ok?’

‘You don’t have anything better to do with your nights then keep an eye on me?’

Toy stomped the floor with the flat sole of her sandal boot. ‘ I don’t need to keep-an–eye, I can put you in the jail, can have Lek come and lock you in the toilet, I came to have fun.’

She sat at the table, pouting, already a little drunk he thought.

‘Jeez, O.k., I’m sorry.’

‘I thought you lonely so I come and keep-you-a -company.’

Lonny got off the bed and joined her at the table. ‘Just that, that damned consul guy, he shook me up, I thought it was going to just be the police, Thai police.’

‘Brent? No worry about him.’ Toy lifted a plate cover and snatched a raw shrimp from its bed of ice, waving the pinkish sea bug in front of her face. ‘I have some understanding with Brent’ and bit the meat from the tail.

‘Thanks for the food, its real nice of you.’

Toy’s face snapped back to her gleeful mocking norm as she uncovered all the dishes and opened the wine and Lonny tucked into his steak and drank the first of six beers she had packed in ice.

Lonny sat back in the chair, his stomach protruded from the opening of his robe and waved his hand in surrender. ‘I can’t, no more, can’t put no more in.’

Toy held a plate with some kind of meat fried in garlic and spring onions, imploring Lonny to eat more. He had already devoured his steak and baked potato and then started in on the dishes Toy had ordered. Again she took him through the menu, explaining the food, how it was made and what part of the country it had originated in. She showed him how to eat the indescribable and warned him away from the fiery dishes that she only picked at. “Why do you order so much food?’

‘It’s the normal in Thailand to order so much and so share with each other and also because everything is delicious so no need to decide.’

Lonny got up from the table and sat in the arm chair patting his bursting belly, and shook his head.

‘No more.’

‘You want some dessert?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Ok, I want some, I like the sweet.’ Toy ate one of four powdered chocolate truffles off a tiny plate detailed with gold filigree and did a shot of tequila. She poured two more and walked over and handed one to Lonny, knocked hers back and fell on the bed. Lonny eyed the shot and sniffed at the tequila. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise as shivers passed down his spine. It had been a long time since he had done tequila shots but he drank it down. His stomach lurched once but it was quality tequila and settled quickly.

Toy turned the TV on and flicked through the channels.

‘Can we find x movie?’

‘X movie?’

‘Yes, watch a-sex-movie, is fun.’ Toy stopped at a film where two women were kissing in the snow. ‘This looks nice.’

‘You’re a strange girl.’ Lonny mumbled.

Toy smiled either not understanding or accepting what he said as a compliment.

‘Everything Ok with the phone call?’

Lonny snickered, ‘ Not really, I don’t know, Tanners mother screamed at me for about five minutes and then when she was done Brent took over with his dad. I guess that went better.’

‘It did, of course mother is upset. Her son is kidnap in Thailand. She afraid because it too dangerous, dangerous country.’

‘Brent told me how much the ransom is, why so cheap? It almost doesn’t seem worth it.’

Toy took Lonny’s shot glass from him and went to the table and poured hers full, drank it down and then filled them both and brought his back.

‘You have to understand how much. How much his family have, How to make easy. You ask for too much nothing going to happened. You ever see those men in Africa who steal a boat? They ask for too much and what happen, they get so much trouble. Soldier with helicopter have navy SEAL come, everything. This much, five million Baht, is not so much, they can transfer easy, they not hire a professional to come here and make-a-problem.

She downed her shot, and sat on the bed. ‘You’re a criminal right?’

‘What is? I don’t know the word.’

‘A criminal, you make your money doing crimes, like kidnapping and whatever.’

‘Sometimes, we have the business also, but yes my father, I, you know we not like to say because it is impolite. In Thailand we call mafia.’

‘You call it mafia? It’s the same in America, what we call the mob.’

‘Yes is the same, we are mafia too.’

‘I always wanted to ask a real criminal, like how much is enough? Your rich already why kidnap Tanner for a couple hundred thousand bucks?’

‘Tanner?’

‘Or anything else, you don’t need the money.’

‘It’s my job.’

‘But do you have to keep doing it? Isn’t there a point when you have enough? I seen, like you know, mob guys all my life growing up and they put all their time into making money, and hurting people and cheating and then they just piss it away on cars and watches and all that kind of shit. If the money's so important, why waste it?’

‘I don’t know, don’t understand what you mean.’

Lonny shook it off and drank his tequila. He would never understand the criminal mentality no matter what kind of package it came in. Doing a crime to get something, seed money, or a nest egg to set yourself up that made sense. Stealing from a big faceless corporation who do business by cheating and stealing themselves, no harm in that, but a life of crime? Extortion and heists and kidnapping. Nickel and dime shit, taking food out of normal people’s mouths, seems like it would end in an ulcer.

'OK, but let me ask you something else, about your religion. Your Buddhist right?'

'Of course all Thai people Buddhist.' 'I saw you doing like a prayer to the alter or what ever at your father's club. Isn't all this against, you know the commandments of Buddha? Killing and kidnapping? Sure that's gotta be a sin?'

'The sin?'

'Like a bad thing in your religion'

'We make a merit at the wat,' She said flatly.

The look on her face made it apparent he wasn’t getting through. His idea of Buddhism was vague and linked with hippies. Of course in reality they wouldn't be any different than Christians or Jews or Muslims. It's just people, and people are selfish, petty animals so no matter how generous or peaceful a culture professes to be the people practicing it will always find exception, hypocrisy being the only way any religion is tolerable.

'Forget about it, you said Tanner was your boy friend how did you meet him?'

‘Tanner here to work, and give away condom to bar girl. He there every night talking and giving them some paper about not to work in the bar. My father he own many bar in Pot Pong so I go to collect the money. I see him every night, and he very handsome you know so I invite him to come out with me, then he like my boyfriend.’

‘Did he know he was your boyfriend?’

‘How you meet you girlfriend, you see her on the net?

‘No. Why are you here anyway? You gotta have something better to do.’

‘No, nothing else. I don’t have-my-boyfriend right now, I want to spend time talking with you.’

‘Why?’

Lonny got up and fetched another beer, snatching a piece of breaded shrimp from one of the platters while he was there.

‘I like to practice English; I like to spend time with a man. I think I like you, Lonny, see I can say the L now you see, Lonny.’

Toy got up and did another two shots of tequila and returned to the bed, lying across it, showing off her legs to their best advantage.

Lonny stayed in his chair watching her as she began to flick the channels on the television again. Confused by the girl. She had control over him, could make him do whatever she wanted, but this act was out of the realm of his understanding.

Toy laid the remote down, ‘No X movie channel. That’s stupid. The hotel should always have an X movie. I have an active libido.’

‘You should try sleeping on a harder bed, I get the sciatica sometimes and have to sleep on the floor for a week.’

Toy sat looking drunk and unhappy. ‘Ok Lonny, I understand you, we just be friends. You like something else. I know you. They told me at the club. You like something, not me.’

She stood up and walked to the door then turned and put her finger to her lips. ‘We know everything about each other, just like best friends.’