Murder at the House of Rooster Happiness (20 page)

And mostly her girls followed that dream. But there were a few pictures that were turned toward the wall. Not many—perhaps half a dozen. But enough to show that Siriwan wasn’t always successful. Ladarat had asked her once what had happened with those girls, but her cousin had said only that they broke the rules. That was all. There was no room at the Tea House for girls who were disrespectful or dishonest or who broke the rules. (But neither, she was quick to point out, was there any place at all for men who did the same thing. Jonah would see to that.)

“So,” Ladarat said. “Have you learned anything?”

Her cousin was strangely hesitant. She was always the outgoing one, and was hardly shy. And yet she seemed reluctant to speak. And there was her choice to meet back here in her office, with the door closed behind them. Yes, she definitely seemed nervous. But why?

“I may have some information for you.” She paused. “Or I know someone who may have some information. But, cousin, you must promise me that you will be very careful.”

“Careful?”

“You are working as a detective, but… you know you are
not
a detective, right? I mean to say, you know not to take the sorts of silly risks that a real detective would take?”

Ladarat nodded. She knew. “I’m no detective, I know that. I’m merely helping our friend Khun Wiriya.”

Her cousin smiled, relieved. “Good. I was worried that perhaps you might be taking this too seriously. As you take all of your work.” She smiled again, but not unkindly. It was a joke between the two of them, that despite the fact that her cousin was the mamasan at a brothel, devoted to pleasure and good times, she had always been Ladarat’s equal in terms of seriousness. Serious in terms of her business acumen, for instance. And both serious and ferocious in her protection of her girls.

“Well, in that case, I can tell you about a woman who might be able to help you. She runs a brothel that is not so law-abiding.”

“How so?”

“I know there have been… complaints. Complaints of girls making videotapes of clients and selling them, for instance.” She shook her head. “It is bad for our business. Very bad. It means the police look at us doubly carefully.”

“But what might she know about this woman?”

Here her cousin looked worried.

“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. But I will say that it was she who came to me.”

“She did? But how?”

“I was making inquiries of other mamasans who run brothels that cater to Chinese men, and word got out. So she called me this afternoon, asking to meet me. I told her that I was actually asking for a friend, and she seemed reluctant at first. In fact, I thought she was going to hang up. But she agreed to meet with you.”

“So this is good, no?”

But Siriwan was thoughtful. “I’m not sure. Yes, it could be helpful. And it is good that she came to me. It suggests…”

“That she has something that she wants to get off her chest.”

Her cousin smiled. “Exactly so. Something she wants to get off her chest.” She looked at Ladarat appreciatively. “Perhaps you are a good detective.” She smiled. “But there is another possibility,” she continued. “You must also consider that maybe she knows something, and that she wants to prevent you from asking questions. It is possible, cousin, that this is a trap.”

“A trap?”

“Exactly so. Remember that there is murder involved. With serious penalties for anyone connected. If this mamasan is connected…”

“She could be scared.”

“Indeed.”

“So who is this woman?”

“Her name is Wipaporn Chakrabonse. She is ethnic Chinese and owns a bar right next to Dok Mai Market, on the river. She’s the co-owner, actually. I heard that she got into business trouble a year ago and she had to bring on a partner who got her out of trouble. That’s when things changed and I started hearing complaints.”

“So what did she tell you about this woman we’re looking for?”

“She wouldn’t say over the phone. But she did say she’d meet you tomorrow night.”

Her cousin didn’t seem overjoyed to be able to convey this news.

“I think you should take Jonah,” she said.

“But shouldn’t he be here with you?”

“I can spare him for a night.”

“No, there’s really no need. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

Ladarat’s answer was a simple reflex. A natural reflex certainly. But when she stopped to consider the note that was now stored in her Beetle’s glove box, she was less certain that this reflex was the wisest response.

Up to this point, Ladarat had assumed that the threat to her beloved Beetle came from Peaflower. But what if that threat came from this mamasan, Khun Wipaporn? Or from both of them, working together?

Should she reconsider the offer of a bodyguard?

But her cousin, who knew how stubborn Ladarat could be, did not press her case. Instead, she simply slid a piece of paper across the desk. It was Tea House stationery. Who had stationery made for a brothel? On it was the woman’s name, Wipaporn Chakrabonse, and a number: 9283.

THE $30 RAMBUTAN

T
he fruit seller wasn’t at his post. He’d left his cart unattended, which was strange. But presumably he knew that no one would take a mango uninvited. Even a
farang
would know better.

She was going to walk by, but a fresh pomelo salad with dried shrimp and sticky rice would be very good tonight. Pomelo—oversize, mild grapefruit—were almost always in season in Thailand. And with some dried shrimp from the corner 7-Eleven and some dried chilies, it made a foolproof meal. Even she could manage a pomelo salad. Ladarat took a look around for the owner and then stepped behind the cart, pulling out a plastic bag and selecting two of the ripest pomelo. She put two 20 baht notes under an avocado at the bottom of the pile, sticking out far enough to be seen by the fruit seller but not enough to tempt passersby who had sticky fingers.

She looked up to see a young blond man—a
farang
—standing in front of her. He was wearing a tank top and cutoff shorts, a White Sox baseball cap, and a three-day growth of beard. American. He was holding a fruit delicately between thumb and forefinger, head cocked to one side.

“What… is this?” Definitely American.

And probably a recent arrival. He hadn’t been in Thailand very long if this was the first time he’d seen a rambutan. The golfball-size fruits with spikes were ubiquitous most of the year. But they took some work to open, and most
farang
didn’t bother.

“It’s a rambutan,” she said.

If he was surprised by her near-perfect English, he didn’t show it. Or perhaps he thought that all Thais spoke English as well as he did.

“Do you… eat it?”

For a moment she was confused by the strange American use of pronouns. Did
she
eat it? No. Too much work. Do other people? Most certainly. Otherwise, what on earth would it be doing sitting on a fruit seller’s cart?

“You have to cut it open,” she explained. “Then you eat the wedges inside and spit out the seeds.”

The young man looked dubious. Then he handed over a bill: 1,000 baht.

She shook her head. “No, that’s thirty dollars. Too much.”

The young man smiled sheepishly. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a wad of maybe 5,000 baht in various denominations. She took the smallest note she could find—20 baht—and held it up. He nodded happily.

“Be careful about carrying that much money around,” she warned him. “You have more than many people in this neighborhood earn in a month.”

The young man’s brows furrowed in concern, and she realized that he was really quite young. Maybe not even eighteen.

“But I thought Chiang Mai was safe?”

He also still didn’t think there was anything unusual about having this conversation in fluent English with an apparent fruit seller, which showed just how out of his depth he was.

“It is very safe, compared to Bangkok or… Chicago.” She smiled as the boy looked confused. She pointed at his hat. “The White Sox? Wrigley Field?” The kid nodded happily.

It must be nice to be so unfazed by events. If traveling halfway around the world and meeting someone who spoke perfect English, sold him a rambutan from a fruit stall, and talked about the White Sox had not affected this boy’s outlook one bit, then what would?

There are people like that who are so trusting that the oddest events don’t seem to register. And those people all seemed to come to Thailand as tourists.

The kid nodded uncertainly and ambled off down the street, the corner of a 1,000-baht note peeking from his back pocket. Yes, Chiang Mai was safe, and the chances that he would get mugged were very low. But fingers in these streets were quick and deft. The chances of that 1,000-baht note reaching its destination were slim indeed.

She tucked the boy’s 20-baht note alongside hers and thought about leaving the fruit seller a note. Ah, well. Let him wonder.

THE CASE OF THE FROWNING DURIAN

L
adarat was so pleased with that image of the fruit seller’s pleasant surprise that at first she didn’t notice the change that had overtaken her Beetle. She paused, with her fingers gripping the door handle. Looking down at the driver’s seat.

That seat should have been empty, she knew. She was not sitting in that seat, so it should be empty. But it was not.

The seat was occupied by an object that looked vaguely familiar. It was an oblong fruitlike object, about eight inches in diameter, covered with short, sharp spikes. What registered in her mind was not the object so much as its eyes. Its face, actually. Its spikes had been carefully trimmed to create the appearance of a face.

That rudimentary face had small eyes, an even smaller nose, and what might charitably be described as a frown. And each of these facial landmarks seemed to be emphasized by holes that had been carved into the object. That’s what she noticed first—that there was a frowning face staring up at her from the driver’s seat of her Beetle. Even in light of the oddness-to-date of her week, this struck her as being rather unusual. One did not generally find such things in one’s car. Even in the busy, surprising life of a detective, she imagined, such things were unusual.

Her brain did not immediately register the nature of the fruit that had been artistically enhanced. Actually, it’s safe to say that her brain did not register the fruit’s identity at all. That detective work was performed by her nose.

Even with the car door closed, and the windows rolled up, her Beetle was surrounded by a thick miasma of smell that was a mixture of putrefying garbage, raw sewage, and rotten eggs. If that scent were visible, it would perhaps look like the ripply emanations that you see blanketing a hot parking lot. Ripples and waves of a smell that could only come from one perpetrator. In that moment, her nose realized that her beloved Beetle had been vandalized by a durian.

Of course, Ladarat was not intimately familiar with the rigors of crime and detection. There were many things she did not know, and indeed would never know. And yet, in this one instance, she was quite certain of one thing: This could only be a threat.

Even with no knowledge of the criminal mind, the combination of the note earlier that afternoon, and the frowning durian, she recognized with total clarity that she was being warned away from the Peaflower case. That was her first thought.

The second thought took longer to form, but she had time. Plenty of time.

Ladarat carefully opened the driver’s-side door and picked up the offending fruit, then walked very fast about twenty meters to a trash can. The street was almost deserted and no one gave her a second glance as she deposited the fruit, its frowning face positively glaring at her as it fell backward to its doom.

Ladarat opened both of the Beetle’s windows, and also the little triangular windows on either side of the dashboard. There was very little breeze, but there was some. Her Beetle would air out in time. So she waited, leaning against the hood. She waited, and she thought.

She did not need to think much about the meaning of this threatening fruit. Its significance should be clear to even an obtuse observer. Even to someone who knew nothing about detection and the criminal mind. So she didn’t think about the fact—and indeed it was truly a fact, if ever there was one—that this was a warning.