on red, and a hundred dollars each on 9, 11, 13, and 15. Focus on the spinning wheel was total. The table was silent. A public hanging would not have produced greater concentration in a crowd. The ball stopped on red, which was good for Lilly, but—even better for Polly—it landed on 13. At 35 to 1 it was a serious win. Lilly and Polly exchanged glances. Did I detect a certain reticence in both sets of Chinese eyes?
“One and three add up to four,” Lilly said, “the number of death. I can’t believe you did that.”
“Me either,” Polly said, “I just wasn’t thinking.” She seemed seriously penitent, as if she had inadvertently made a pact with the devil.
“You knew what you were doing. You did it because of the fly.”
“You didn’t win with the fly.”
“No, but I almost did. You were scared shitless. You bet on four to get even.”
“It wasn’t four, it was thirteen.”
“Even worse. Even
gweilos
know it’s unlucky. And it adds up to four. You’ve ruined the evening.”
Polly made a face, but she was shaken. Lilly looked as if she were about to cry. “I brought the shrine,” Polly said, and put an arm on Lilly’s elbow.
“You did?”
Polly opened her handbag to show something to her sister.
Lilly collared one of the supervisors. “We want to go to the prayer room,” she told him.
“Certainly,” he said.
“Excuse us for a moment,” Polly said to me.
I watched them disappear into some private room of the casino—and never saw them again. I hung around for about an hour and a half, then grabbed one of the supervisors. When I mentioned the name Yip, he shrugged and allowed himself a slight smirk. There was no message waiting back in the hotel, and reception told me the sisters had not returned to their room.
Next morning a message was waiting for me on the hotel’s system. It gave the reservation number and other details of an e-ticket in my name: a single seat, first-class, Nice–Bangkok via Dubai.
11
Back in Bangkok, Vikorn’s mug was everywhere, just as he had promised: every third lamppost. His undisguised intention was to crowd out the competition, which was numerous. It’s one of our paradoxes: we are a shy people who love to run for public office. Men and women, who cannot hope to get votes other than from family members dress in their Sunday best—white military costumes for the boys, serious colors and high necklines for the girls—so they can share lampposts with the likes of Vikorn, whose life and times had begun to be discussed in a discreet way by the media. One brave journalist hinted that a Bangkok cop might not be the wisest choice for governor when you thought of how creative former holders of that office had been with those purchasing contracts for buses and police cars, not to mention the multibillion-baht extension to the Skytrain. I was not comfortable, either. The man who had controlled my destiny for more than a decade now loomed at me from every corner: master crook of the universe.
Those three Americans had checked out my people’s value system and decided to present Vikorn on the street as Father Wisdom, with gray hair whitened a shade, a confident smile (which had triumphed over deep suffering), right hand held slightly palm up, in a subliminal reference to a Buddha image, the sparkling city behind him as if it had elected him already. Voting day was more than a month away, though,and he had not yet gone public with his “Stop Organ Trafficking Now” campaign, although I’d seen some of the advance publicity: “Devout Buddhist police colonel who has worked steadily and selflessly on his own time for more than a decade to stop this ghoulish trade and, now, thanks to meticulous detective work headed up by his hand-selected protégé, Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, can humbly reveal that a vast international network, which uses the sacred soil of Thailand as an organ depot, has been broken and busted.”
He hadn’t debriefed me yet,
“One and three add up to four,” Lilly said, “the number of death. I can’t believe you did that.”
“Me either,” Polly said, “I just wasn’t thinking.” She seemed seriously penitent, as if she had inadvertently made a pact with the devil.
“You knew what you were doing. You did it because of the fly.”
“You didn’t win with the fly.”
“No, but I almost did. You were scared shitless. You bet on four to get even.”
“It wasn’t four, it was thirteen.”
“Even worse. Even
gweilos
know it’s unlucky. And it adds up to four. You’ve ruined the evening.”
Polly made a face, but she was shaken. Lilly looked as if she were about to cry. “I brought the shrine,” Polly said, and put an arm on Lilly’s elbow.
“You did?”
Polly opened her handbag to show something to her sister.
Lilly collared one of the supervisors. “We want to go to the prayer room,” she told him.
“Certainly,” he said.
“Excuse us for a moment,” Polly said to me.
I watched them disappear into some private room of the casino—and never saw them again. I hung around for about an hour and a half, then grabbed one of the supervisors. When I mentioned the name Yip, he shrugged and allowed himself a slight smirk. There was no message waiting back in the hotel, and reception told me the sisters had not returned to their room.
Next morning a message was waiting for me on the hotel’s system. It gave the reservation number and other details of an e-ticket in my name: a single seat, first-class, Nice–Bangkok via Dubai.
11
Back in Bangkok, Vikorn’s mug was everywhere, just as he had promised: every third lamppost. His undisguised intention was to crowd out the competition, which was numerous. It’s one of our paradoxes: we are a shy people who love to run for public office. Men and women, who cannot hope to get votes other than from family members dress in their Sunday best—white military costumes for the boys, serious colors and high necklines for the girls—so they can share lampposts with the likes of Vikorn, whose life and times had begun to be discussed in a discreet way by the media. One brave journalist hinted that a Bangkok cop might not be the wisest choice for governor when you thought of how creative former holders of that office had been with those purchasing contracts for buses and police cars, not to mention the multibillion-baht extension to the Skytrain. I was not comfortable, either. The man who had controlled my destiny for more than a decade now loomed at me from every corner: master crook of the universe.
Those three Americans had checked out my people’s value system and decided to present Vikorn on the street as Father Wisdom, with gray hair whitened a shade, a confident smile (which had triumphed over deep suffering), right hand held slightly palm up, in a subliminal reference to a Buddha image, the sparkling city behind him as if it had elected him already. Voting day was more than a month away, though,and he had not yet gone public with his “Stop Organ Trafficking Now” campaign, although I’d seen some of the advance publicity: “Devout Buddhist police colonel who has worked steadily and selflessly on his own time for more than a decade to stop this ghoulish trade and, now, thanks to meticulous detective work headed up by his hand-selected protégé, Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, can humbly reveal that a vast international network, which uses the sacred soil of Thailand as an organ depot, has been broken and busted.”
He hadn’t debriefed me yet,
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