Bangkok Haunts

arranged for a police van to meet us at Hualamphong railway terminal.

14
    We are tiny figurines hanging from the charm bracelet of infinity. When these bodies wear out, we will migrate to others. What will I be next, tinker, tailor, tiger, fly? Demon, Buddha, mountain, louse—all things are equal in their essential emptiness. But will there be a planet worth living on in fifty years’ time?
Chart na
means “next life,” and if you’re Buddhist you worry about it. Not only yours, but the earth’s too, for it, also, is a living being with its own karma with which our own is inextricably entwined.
    Well, it’s getting hotter year by year—that’s finally official. Even scientists employed by the United States government now agree: we will be the only species in cosmic history deliberately to fry itself to extinction. I happened to be watching the BBC on our cable link this morning and half expected the newscaster to adopt an urgent tone, but he used the same smooth voice as for births, deaths, and football results. It’s not his fault, of course; he knows better than most how retro normality can be, but what is the appropriate reaction when the mind relies on denial to balance itself? Carry on as normal, I guess: just keep burning carbon. Environmental fascism will come eventually. When the Himalayas are melting, leaders of English-speaking countries will threaten to nuke to a crisp those third-world nations still relying on fossil fuels. That’ll help global warming.
    So now the FBI and I are in a cab on our way at last to a warehouse in Chinatown by the Chao Phraya River, which Vikorn has rented and is in process of buying for the purpose of developing the arts side of his empire. It was, clearly, a blunder on my part to mention to Kimberley this amendment to my job description, for I happen to loathe this new role of mine and need a couple of beers before I can steel myself to enter Yammy’s atelier.
    I order a Kloster at a riverside café, and to my surprise Kimberley joins me. We both spare a moment to take in the river, which as usual is roaring with human life. In the midstream brightly painted tugs tow barges with big eyes on the bows, while longtails with gigantic former bus engines mounted on davits with outboard propeller shafts about fifteen feet long roar up and down, packed with tourists. The river is still the only jam-free thoroughfare for a lot of people commuting to work and back, so the long, thin passenger ferries are packed; they arrive and depart the floating docks amid a frenzy of hysterical whistles from the pilots at the stern, who like to give the impression of catastrophe narrowly averted.
    The FBI almost never drinks alcohol, but I know from various telephone conversations that she’s been in a strange state ever since she arrived. Why is she here,
exactly
? Sure, she’s interested in the case, and from what she has disclosed so far, it really does tie in with her work in Virginia. But even razor-sharp FBI agents don’t just jump on a plane overnight on the basis of a call from a friend. Delighted though I am to have her around, I’ve been wondering about her. As a matter of fact, our friendship went on hold for more than a year, before it restarted with one of those telephone calls
farang
make out of the blue: “Hey, Sonchai, how’s it going?” as if she were just around the corner and we’d been constantly in touch. It was the middle of the night, my time, and it took me a while to wake up. I had to take the cell phone out into the yard so as not to awaken Chanya and the Lump. (No, I did not say, “Kimberley, do you realize it’s two A.M . over here?” Thai courtesy.) My attitude changed when I started to realize how unhappy she was. As her voice slowed and drooped, compassion kicked in. When she tried out a few amorous gambits, I had to tell her about Chanya and the baby; that gave her pause for a while. She didn’t quite admit that she’d been fantasizing about living happily ever after in Bangkok with that weirdo half-caste cop she’d sort of bonded with on the python case. (A transsexual Thai—M2F—murdered a black American marine with drug-crazed cobras and a giant python. We refrained from potting her/him for reasons of compassion.) Not quite, and anyway it started to emerge that her need was extrahormonal: “I’m hitting a wall over here, Sonchai. I don’t have a lot of friends outside the U.S.—only you, really. Just because America is a big country