Bangkok Haunts

places it on the Lump.

4
    I have already checked out her apartment, where the security found her body, of course. It was a quick, cursory visit, though, and I have been feeling the need to return for a more thorough examination. I had plenty of time to do it yesterday, but that was a Wednesday, and you don’t mess with the dead on Wednesdays. If all roads in the West lead to Rome, then all superstitions in the East lead back to India; our Brahmin mentors left precise instructions on this and other points, including color coding for days of the week; if you notice a lot of us wearing pink on Tuesdays, that’s why. I don’t normally follow this tradition unless something has made me nervous. Today there’s a tint of Thursday orange in my socks, shirt, and handkerchief; better safe than sorry.
    Damrong’s condo happens to be in a midrange apartment building in Soi 23, within easy walking distance of my mother’s bar, the Old Man’s Club, where I slept last night. (Okay, I confess, I didn’t want to bring bad luck to Chanya and Pichai on a Wednesday night, when the black god Rahu rules the skies; I figured if I was going to come under attack from Damrong’s ghost, it would be better to take the hit at the club.)
    It’s late morning by the time I’ve finished getting the bar ready for tonight; most of the chores involve ordering beer and spirits, checking that the cleaning staff have done a good job, and taking care of the Buddha. He’s a little guy, no more than two feet tall, who sits on a high shelf above the cash register; he has a huge appetite for lotus garlands, however, and shuts off the luck pronto if I forget. Before I go to Damrong’s flat, I find a street vendor in a side
soi
with a trishaw piled high with lotus garlands,
kreung sangha tan
(monk baskets full of goodies like soap, crisps, bananas, sugar, instant coffee; you buy one and donate it to your favorite
wat
as a way of making merit), wind chimes, bamboo chairs, cut flowers. I buy three lotus garlands, take them back to the club, festoon our voracious little Buddha with them, light a bunch of incense that I hold between my hands as I mindfully
wai
him, and hope I’ve done enough to keep lucky today.
    I wait half an hour or so for my mother to appear. She arrives in a BMW with tinted windows. Her driver stops just outside the club to let her out, then drives off to a private car park in Soi 23. She has put on weight recently, with the result that her bum-hugging black leggings and tit-hugging T-shirts have given way to looser, more conservative attire. She is wearing a long tweed skirt with matching jacket (Thursday-orange threads prominent)—top-of-the-range stuff but sadly middle aged—and plenty of gold. She is the very image of a middle-class professional and could easily be a university professor. I give her a sniff-kiss on the cheek when she crosses the threshold and notes with approval that I’ve fed the Buddha. She sits heavily at one of the tables in the club and lights a Marlboro Red.
    “This place is so dated now, Sonchai,” she says, taking in the faux jukebox with its galaxy of twinkling stars, the Marilyn Monroe, Sinatra, Mamas & Papas, Doors, early Beatles, and Stones posters on the wall. “We’re going to have to do something to pull in the johns. All the other bars have renovated. The girls are dancing naked in Fire House and Vixens. We’re losing customers.”
    I frown and shake my head. The prospect of girls dancing naked strikes me as a step down the slippery slope toward a more calculated form of exploitation. My mother knows my reservations and frowns in her turn.
    “Times are changing, Sonchai, and we have to change with them. You’ve done well enough from the bar—you could never survive on your cop’s salary. It’s time you took off the rose-colored glasses. Nine out of ten girls who apply for jobs here
want
to dance naked. They know that’s the way to get customers. A john who isn’t sure if he wants to get laid, get drunk, or go to bed early to nurse his jet lag will weaken at the sight of nipples and pubic hair. The West is sinking under the weight of its own hypocrisy, and these days more and more Chinese and Indian men are visiting the bars looking for some no-frills action. Let’s face it, the girls are too poor to worry about their manners.”
    “Aren’t you worried about what we’re going to become,
chart na
?”
    “The next life is determined by how generous we are in this one, how much