The Thai Amulet Read Online Free PDF Page B

air even more so, the poverty relentless, the sex trade highly visible and unpleasant. Still, when the sun touches the golden spires of The Grand Palace or reflects off the glass mosaics on the temple facades, making them sparkle as if wreathed in a million tiny, multicolored lights, when I smell for a moment, even in the city, the heady scent of jasmine and fran-gipane, or catch a glimpse of the rhythm of daily life on the
klongs,
then I am seduced once more. It is as if I have arrived for the first time, to be overwhelmed by the sights and smells, drugged by the heat, confused by sights so foreign. But it is also as if I’ve been there all my life, that somehow it is where I belong. For a few moments, I just stood there, taking it all in.
    As Clive had pointed out, more than once since we’d had our first conversation on the subject, I held wildly divergent views on Will. Part of me thought he’d be easy to find. All I had to do was wait for an hour or two outside his home, and he was bound to come crawling out. The other pact held that he was off on some beach somewhere, a drink with an umbrella in it in one hand, suntan lotion in the other. Both these scenarios were based on a single premise, however: that he was trying to avoid paying a dime to his wife and daughter.
    I had no trouble finding Fairfield Antiques. It was located on a
soi,
or lane, off Silom Road, in an old mansion that had been converted into the Bangkok version of a shopping plaza. The area was once the center of town from the point of view of foreigners, or
farang
as they are called. It is near the river, off what was then referred to as New Road, now by its Thai name of Charoen Krung, a street built in the mid—nineteenth century to accommodate the carriages of foreign diplomats, and many of the embassies were nearby. The neighborhood then centered, and perhaps still does, on the exotic Oriental Hotel, which played host to writers like Joseph Conrad, Somerset Maugham, and Graham Greene, and where the expatriate community liked to gather and socialize.
    The mansion, which may well at one time have housed an embassy or perhaps an adventurer who had made his fortune in the East, was now a maze of tiny shops, most of them purporting to sell antiques. I say purporting, because my experience is that some of the best fakes in the world can be found in Bangkok, an alarming proportion, indeed, of what is an offer. Worse yet, a disturbing number of those left over after the fakes are factored out have been ripped illegally from temple sites, in other words, stolen. A quick look around confirmed my opinion. It is one of the reasons that my buying trips to Asia often bypass Thailand, and when I do go there, it is to find interesting articles—carved doors, windows, furniture, other decorative pieces—that McClintoch & Swain offers as reproductions to our clients who like the look but don’t insist upon or can’t afford the genuine antique article.
    Fairfield Antiques was there, on the second floor. At least the sign was, in English, and presumably in Thai. The display window was covered with brown kraft paper, however, and the door was securely locked and fastened with a padlock and chain. A few advertising flyers had been partially stuffed through the mail slot, but there was nothing of any interest in them, at least the ones I could read. A notice taped to the door, again in two languages, indicated exactly what the lawyer’s letter had, that the contents had been seized by the landlord—in this case the landlord was mentioned, a firm called Ayutthaya Trading and Property as it turned out; I don’t know why I was surprised, given Jennifer had told me they owned the proverbial half of Bangkok—and would be auctioned at the River City auction facility on the weekend.
    I peered through a tear in the paper. It was dark inside, although a window on the far side did shed some light, enough that I could see the place was completely empty.
    I did a canvass of