Private Dancer (18 page)

I made sure I waved to Pete as the bus left because I know that farangs like long goodbyes.

They're not the same as Thais, Thais just say goodbye and that's it, we don't make a big thing of it, but farangs want lots of kisses and waves and promises that they won't be forgotten. I gave Park hell the next day when he got to Surin, told him he was stupid to have hung around Sunan's room. I wasn't really angry, in fact we both saw the funny side of it, him hanging halfway out of the window and Pete sitting outside the front door with a face like thunder. We started laughing and we ended up telling everybody in the village what had happened. Yeah, I guess it was funny.

I'd talked to Park about going back to Surin when Pete first suggested I give up working at Zombie. He wasn't very enthusiastic, but I thought it was a really good idea because it would get Park away from the temptations of Nana Plaza. He worked as a DJ in Spicy-a-go-go three or four nights a week and the rest of the time he hung around the Plaza with his friends, and I know he was always chatting up other girls. I used to give him hell but he'd slap me and tell me that what he did was his own business. I used to cry and tell him how much I loved him, and once I cut my wrists to show him how unhappy I was, but he didn't seem to care how I felt.

Anyway, when Pete offered me ten thousand baht a month to stop work, I told Park it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Park started moaning about not wanting to leave his friends in Bangkok, but I said that we could keep coming back to visit. A bus ticket was only a couple of hundred baht and so long as I was in Surin when Pete phoned we could do what we wanted the rest of the time. He said that ten thousand baht wasn't enough for him to give up work and that really annoyed me because the most he ever earned was three thousand baht a month. I paid the rent, I gave him money for drink and cigarettes and I bloody well paid for his motorcycle. I didn't say that to his face, of course, because he'd only have slapped me, I just smiled sweetly like I did with farangs in the bar and say that once we'd moved to Surin I'd tell Pete that I needed more money. Pete had a good heart, if I asked for more I'd get it. Besides, it wouldn't be for ever.

A few months, then Pete would be back in Thailand and I'd tell him that I wanted to be near him in Bangkok.

PETE I barely slept the night that Joy went to Surin. I couldn't get the image of the shoes from my mind. The shoes lined up outside the door to Sunan's room. Men's shoes. And the way Joy had behaved didn't make sense, not if she was being truthful, not if she really loved me. Her actions only made sense if she was lying to me. I wanted to believe that she loved me, I wanted to believe it more than anything in the world, but I could still picture the hard look in her eyes as she refused point blank to let me into the room. Why? Why? Why? I could think of only one explanation - there was somebody in there she didn't want me to see. Husband? Boyfriend?

Images of Joy with a Thai man haunted me all night.

I got up just after dawn. Three cleaners were sitting in the corridor outside my door,

chattering away. I opened the door and asked if they minded being quiet and they all smiled at me. They were passing around a bag of dried fish and one of the women held it up to me. I shook my head and closed the door. They started talking and laughing again as I went through to the bathroom and showered. I couldn't get Joy out of my mind. I kept picturing the way she'd cover herself with a towel after she'd showered, taking great care to conceal her body from me, despite the fact that there wasn't a part of her that I hadn't seen, hadn't caressed, hadn't kissed. Was there someone else who knew her body as well as I did? Someone else who shared her bed? Someone with her, in Surin?

It was crazy to torture myself like this, I knew, but knowing and stopping were two completely different things, and I knew that my imagination would torture me all the more once I got back to England. There was only one way of putting my mind at rest. I'd have to get someone to go and check on her. I couldn't do it, there were hardly any farangs in Isarn, and my Thai wasn't anywhere near good enough for me to start asking questions.

There were two firms of private detectives advertising in the Bangkok Yellow Pages. I phoned the first one but couldn't get any sense out of the woman who answered the phone. She couldn't understand my Thai and didn't appear to be able to speak English. I kept flicking through my dictionary to find the words for investigate and detective but eventually she lost patience with me and put the phone down. Typical Thailand. The advertisement for the second firm listed personal identity checks as one of the many services it offered, which included translations, visas and marriage papers. The woman who answered spoke really good English and once I'd explained what I wanted, she told me that Kuhn Phiraphan would definitely be able to help me.

His office was in a tower block off Suriwong Road, a stone's throw from Patpong. It seemed to be quite a large operation, there was a big reception area filled with chrome and leather furniture and an efficient receptionist who gave me a glass of iced water as soon as I sat down. I thought Phiraphan might start playing power games with me and have me wait for an hour so before seeing me, so I was pleasantly surprised when after ten minutes the receptionist said that he was ready and took me down a long corridor.

Phiraphan was in his late forties wearing a three piece pinstriped suit and thick horn-rimmed glasses. His handshake was firm and dry and he waved me to a seat opposite his shiny black desk. I explained how I'd met Joy, and the financial arrangement I'd made with her. He steepled his fingers under his chin as I talked and he watched me over the top of his glasses with unblinking brown eyes. Initially I was a little embarrassed at baring my soul, but he didn't smile or say anything, he didn't even take notes, he just listened impassively. I told him about my suspicions, the fact that she wouldn't let me see her room, the fact that sometimes she wouldn't stay the night, the feelings I had that she wasn't being completely honest with me.

Phiraphan waited until I'd finished, then he took a slim gold pen and made some notes on a yellow legal pad. He started asking questions. About Joy. Her family. Her job at Zombie. Her friends. I wanted to ask how much it would cost, but I didn't get the chance. The questioning went on for almost fifteen minutes. “Do you have a photograph?” he asked.

I handed over half a dozen colour prints that I'd taken when I'd visited Joy's house with Bruno. There were photographs of Joy, Mon and Sunan, and of the house. I also gave Phiraphan a piece of paper on which I'd written Joy's address in Thai, and the number of the phone in Surin.

“Do you think you'll be able to help?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” he said, examining the photographs one by one. “I have worked on many such cases.”

“For farangs?”

“Oh yes. If she has a husband or boyfriend, I will be able to find out for you. Guaranteed.”

“How much would it cost?” I asked.

He looked at me and I almost laughed out loud because he had the same glint in his eye that Joy had had when I'd asked her how much money she'd need to stop work. I was being weighed up by the detective, the price he was going to quote had more to do with what he thought I could afford rather than what the job was worth. That was par for the course in Thailand, and I'd dressed accordingly. I figured I was less likely to get ripped off if I wore a sweatshirt and jeans and my old Reeboks.

“You must understand, such an operation will not be easy,” he said. He picked up the piece of paper I'd given him. “I know this village, it is close to the border with Cambodia and is a dangerous place. Strangers will always be noticed. I must be very cunning.”

I nodded.

“I will have to drive up with two associates. It may take us several days.”

I nodded again.

“I think such an operation would cost fifty thousand baht.”

Ouch. That was about twice what I thought it was going to cost. I asked if there was any chance of a discount, and he shrugged. I offered twenty five thousand baht and we settled on thirty thousand. I'd brought twenty thousand baht with me so I took it out and gave it to him,

with the promise that I'd send the rest when I got his report. He stood up and shook my hand and then ushered me to the door.

The next day I caught a British Airways flight to London.

JIMMY I gave Rick and Matt a piece of my mind, I can tell you. I was livid. Bloody livid. They'd both told me that the geezer was the best screw they'd ever had. Fucked like a bunny on E, they said.

A guaranteed three hole fuck who kept coming back for more. Jesus, if you can't trust your mates, who can you trust, hey? I went into Zombie and bar fined the geezer, bought her a few drinks to loosen her up, then took her back to the flat. She showered, I showered, everything's hunky dory. I climb into bed with her, and we get down to business. Great kisser, lots of tongue,

lots of enthusiasm. She goes down on me and gives me a blow job to beat all blow jobs. So far so good. She licks my arse, sucks my balls, runs her nails down my legs, drives me crazy. Like I said, no one knows what a guy wants better than another guy. So I pull her up and flick her over on to her back. She rolls over, says she prefers it from behind, but I want to kiss her while I'm screwing her so I keep her on her back. I put my hand between her legs and fuck me, what do I find but a dick. A fucking dick.

I stopped dead. She hadn't had the fucking operation. I was gobsmacked. The katoeys who still have their dicks usually work in the upstairs bars in Nana Plaza, they don't work downstairs until they've had their tackle surgically removed. It wasn't big, it was more of a vestigial thing,

smaller than my little finger, and as soft as overcooked spaghetti. I guess it was the tablets she took to grow breasts, they make the balls and dick shrink, too. Anyway, the geezer realises that's something's wrong. She smiles at me and caresses the back of my neck. “You not know?” she says. “I thought you know.”

“No,” I said. “I didn't know.”

I rubbed it with my hand but there was no life in it. It was like a dead thing. The geezer pulls me down and starts kissing me again. She slides a hand down my chest and grabs my dick and within seconds I'm hard again. She was sexy, all right, even though she still had a meat and two veg. I start panting and before I know what's happening she rolls on to her front and gets up on her knees. She pushes herself back against me and the next think I know is I'm up her arse,

pumping away like there's no tomorrow. She's looking over her shoulder, urging me on, and I come like a fucking steam train. It was a great shag, all right, the first of many that night. But I gave Rick and Matt hell when I saw them in Fatso's. I mean, they're mates and they should have told me. The thing was, they both swore blind that they didn't know that the geezer had a dick. It just shows you how cunning katoeys can be. Masters of illusion. Which, I guess, is what it's all about. None of this is genuine, really, not when you get down to it. You're paying for an illusion.

That's what Pete doesn't realise, of course. He thinks it's for real.

PHIRAPHAN I've had a few farangs in my office over the years, and they always have the same story. They meet a girl in a bar, they fall in love and want to marry her, but they want to check that the girl is being faithful. I think they're crazy. What do they expect? Bargirls are prostitutes, why do they think a prostitute is going to be faithful? They don't become prostitutes because they want to settle down and raise a family, they become prostitutes because they want money. And most of the time they give their money to their boyfriends or husbands, or they're on drugs. Most of my clients are Thais, and I do a fair amount of marital work, and in my experience, if one partner suspects his spouse is being unfaithful, the chances are that he or she is. There has to be something to spark off a suspicion, so if a situation doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. But when it comes to farangs and bargirls, I can guarantee that the girl's lying. She's either got a boyfriend or a husband, or maybe a kid up country that she's not telling the farang about.

Most of the farangs I do work for have only been in Thailand for a week or so. They come here on holiday, meet a girl, pay her to stop working, then go back to wherever they came from and keep in touch by letter and phone. I think the distance makes the attraction all the more intense, it's as if they've fallen in love with a fantasy figure. How can they expect a girl from a different culture, who doesn't even speak their language properly, to fall in love with them after a few days? How gullible can they be?

Pete was a bit different because at least he'd been in Thailand for a while and could speak some Thai. That just made it all the more surprising that he should fall for a bargirl's charms. He showed me her photograph and frankly I couldn't see what the attraction was. She was a typical Isarn girl with dark skin and a small flat nose, not my type at all. He gave me a photograph of her house near Surin and the address, then asked me how much it would cost to check her out. I explained that it wasn't going to be easy, her village was close to the border with Cambodia and strangers would stick out a mile, and I told him what I'd need as a fee. He left me a deposit, gave me his address and phone number in London, and that was it. Actually, I'd have done the job for considerably less. I had a personal reason for visiting Surin. I have an old girlfriend who lives there and it had been a while since I'd seen her. Pete's case gave me a perfect excuse for visiting her.

PETE It was strange being back in London after such a long time in Thailand. I hadn't seen my flat for more than six months and it didn't feel like home. Neither did London. I missed the noise of Bangkok, and the heat and the smells, the smiles of the people and the buzz of the place. There was a stack of mail in my mail box but nothing important. A friend had been sending any mail on to me every month or so, and he'd kept an eye on the place for me.

I got stuck into work straight away. The company had a small sales office in Covent Garden and Alistair had arranged for the guy who had been compiling the London guide to leave what he'd done with our sales guy. I took a cab out and picked it up. Most was on disc and I loaded it into my own desktop word processor. It was a mess and I spent the first week whipping it into some sort of coherent shape. It soon became clear that it was going to take me longer than Alistair had anticipated, three months maybe.