The Bangkok Asset: A novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

stuff—who’s running it for you?”
    “I thought you’d never ask.” He paused in quizzical mode, then added, “But I’m sure you’ve already guessed.”
    He picked up his cell phone, pressed a button, said, “Send her in,” and closed the phone. He threw me a tolerant smile to show me how far behind his my thinking was. Now there was a knock on the door and a young woman entered.
    “I know you’ve already met, but let me make the introduction anyway,” Vikorn said. “Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep, this is Inspector Krom. Inspector Krom, this is Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep.” He turned to me. “Inspector Krom is our new head of technology,” he said.
    If he had not spoken her name, I might not have recognized the drenched and hooded inspector in the black coveralls from the day before. Today she wore the regulation white blouse with blue shoulder boards and a navy skirt that reached below her knees. Vikorn normally treated all young women the same way: with impeccable chivalry based on the assumption that his power and charisma would be sufficient to bed her were he crass enough to use them, which he never did. After all, he owned clubs full of women younger, more voluptuous, and less challenging; but Krom stumped him. Part of the problem was that Vikorn was too old-fashioned—and the Inspector a tad too good-looking—for it even to occur to him that she was gay. I had radically to revise my view of the young woman who yesterday had seemed so fascinated by a hunk straight out of Hollywood. It seems I had misread her, for, in the Thai vernacular, it was plain to me that she was most definitely a
tom.
Of course, the requirements of survival in a man-dominated profession in Thailand demanded that she dissimulate: it was a little embarrassing the way she turned girly, to give the impression that the phallic force of Vikorn’s power and money were overwhelming her inner command center. (Are there any women who don’t know how to do that where you come from, R?)
    It was a tired ritual, though, that neither party believed in. I think she would have liked to stand with legs apart, chest inflated, one hand in her pocket, the other brandishing a cigar. Trying to explain the technology while keeping up femininity and deference was quite a strain. Vikorn, on the other hand, looked like he needed to put his feet up in a comfortable chair at home.
    “The red are pickup points and the green are delivery points.” She looked me carefully in the eye through those very cute black-framed spectacles that sat on the end of her tiny nose. Now she paused, waiting for me.
    “And the yellow?” I obliged.
    She checked with Vikorn, who nodded for her to answer my question. “They are…I don’t think there’s a word for it in Thai, and my English doesn’t stretch that far.” She checked with Vikorn again.
    “Listening posts,”
he said with a groan.
    “Right,” she said. “The Colonel is correct as always. Listening posts.”
    “But they’re almost all in China?”
    “Correct.” Now it was him and her against me. They both stared into my eyes for a moment, then looked away.
    “May I ask why?”
    “Because they are Chinese listening posts.”
    “Listening to who?”
    “Me,” Vikorn said, then added, “and the Americans. And all the other Asia Pac countries. But it’s okay.” He shrugged. “The Chinese are our friends.” He glanced at Krom and added, “Apparently.”
    He and Krom were staring at me now, waiting. Why would they be waiting for something from me, the lowest-ranked of the three of us? I looked at Vikorn for an answer.
    “Sonchai, what would
you
like to do?”
    Does that sound like a normal, civilized question to you, R? Well, over here it’s not, it’s damned strange for someone like the Chief to ask me in social-worker tones what I would like to do. It’s never been my place to do what I like, my business is to do what
he
likes.
    “What would I like to do? I’d like to arrest those