Black Tiger (27 page)

The last important guest having arrived, the atonal music struck up. Dancers, glittering in jewel-encrusted crowns and costumes, drifted barefoot like shimmering phantoms. Briefly I surrendered myself to the magical experience, momentarily blotting everything out, from my sore head to the confused, hopeless lust and longing for the girl at my side and my anxieties about my increasingly dangerous, irritatingly mysterious mission. Sya Dam was seated at a table behind me. I had no option for the moment but to address my attention to the feast. On the crowded table there now reposed a central dish of boiled rice, and before each diner a semicircle of celadon lotus cups, lidded to retain heat, containing Tom Yang Kung soup redolent of makrut herbs, lemongrass, prawns and
nam pla
, the sharp sauce made from rotting fish. There followed Kaeng Khiao Wan chicken curry, with sweet basil and makhun, chillies both green and red, and coconut cream made by pounding coconut milk in a pestle; duck boiled with water chestnuts; a side dish of beef, flavoured with palm sugar and garlic, the semi-aquatic creeper
phak bung
, and the
kha
tuber added for piquancy.

Chee Laan pointed to this dish. ‘They call this “the Lord Rama descending into his bathwater.” Charming, no?’

The dancers swayed and shivered like leaves in a breeze; their hands, with the foot-long false fingernails, wove their fatalistic tales of hope, love, and despair. Only the smiles never wavered. Then the lights went out, and they danced on, bearing lighted tapers on their fingers, a love dance of fireflies that drew gasps of wonder even from the supercilious Mrs van Hooten.

As for myself, battle-hardened and generally spell-resistant, I found myself reaching for Chee Laan’s hand in the darkened room, imprisoning it firmly yet carefully, as if it were a butterfly I intended to release into the air without crushing its wings. She made no protest, watching the dance while I watched her neat, feline profile; when the house lights came on again, I regretfully released my grip and set her hand free.

There were murmurs of appreciation for the entertainment. Celadon trays with delicate serrated edges appeared, piled high with desserts, coconut, mung beans, and bananas in various guises, with fairytale names:
khanom thin fon tong
, rice and coconut milk slabs, decorated with a flake of edible gold leaf;
khanom lep mu nang
, lady’s fingernails;
kanom khai hia
, alligator eggs peppered in mung beans and lard; and
kluey buay chi
, bananas stewed in coconut cream, sprinkled with pounded and roasted mung beans.

‘They call these Nun Bananas. Thai nuns wear white robes,’ Chee Laan explained.

Mountains of carved fruits were now set before us: rose apples and rambutans, pearly
ngo
and
lamyai
, mangosteens, fuzzy red globes of melon, golden durian stinking of ripe cheese. Salikaa was in high spirits, squealing with laughter, offering her bridegroom titbits from her plate as if he were a pet spaniel. The smiles of the Premsakuls and the van Hootens grew glassier by the minute as they attempted to ignore this vulgar display. Then Salikaa’s voice rang out above the conversation, shrill with irritation: ‘What are you staring at?’

Conversation ceased. Ears strained to hear, although few were willing to lose face by staring.

Prince Toom was in an agony of embarrassment. ‘Your lips. They are so beautiful.’

‘Please do not watch me eat. Watch the dancers.’

Toom devoured her with his eyes. ‘You are more beautiful than any dancer in the world, Salikaa!’

Salikaa seemed about to snap a harsh reply when Pim leaned forward and stared right into her eyes. Salikaa dropped her gaze. Then she tilted her head sideways toward Prince Toom and smiled into his face. She reached out her arm weighed down by the huge golden bangle and patted his cheek like a cat playing with a mouse. ‘Of course I am, darling!’ she said. Without warning she sharpened her fingers and pinched his cheek hard. She sat up very straight then and flashed her radiant smile around the room. Toom stared at her, mystified and hurt, rubbing his cheek where a red mark was spreading. Pim sat back, shaking her head imperceptibly. Glancing at Chee Laan, I saw her lips, too, had tightened disapprovingly.

With a burst of noisy good cheer, van Hooten raised his glass to the diners at our table. He leant toward Chee Laan’s elegant grandmother, Sunii Lee, straight-backed and exquisite in black and gold. ‘Miz Lee, your lovely granddaughter surely resembles her daddy!’

Sunii inclined her head graciously. ‘It is considered good luck for a girl to resemble her father,’ she said, acknowledging the compliment.

Colonel Sya Dam gave a snort, wiped his mouth and dropped the napkin in the centre of his plate. His voice was mocking. ‘And do you know why? The Chinese exposed girl children. Reckoned they weren’t worth feeding. A girl baby who resembled her old man had a chance of touching his heart and getting herself saved.’

‘Ah, the bad old days, eh, Miz Lee!’ van Hooten interposed swiftly, anxious to avoid offence to his distinguished guest.

‘They’ve still got a society in Hong Kong today taking care of unwanted female infants,’ Sya continued complacently in a faint American accent. Chee Laan shot me a meaningful glance.

Her father now created a diversion. He was very drunk. He seemed to me a man who was thoroughly spoiled, the sort who resents having to make the effort of good manners and civil conversation. I was sure, from what Chee Laan let slip, that he was happier with his paramours and his gambling cronies. As though suddenly recalling the presence of his daughter, he bawled out roughly in Taechew: ‘First daughter! Come!’

I sensed her sudden resentful rigidity. But she scrambled up from my side, smiling obediently, and crossed the room to kneel before the fat slob.

I watched helplessly as Sya, noting this pantomime of filial duty, began to laugh.

Raven was shocked when, without warning, Chee Laan’s father, who had been drinking steadily, leaned over and shouted at his daughter in the ugly Taechew dialect of the street. ‘Want to talk to turtle-turd barbarian thinks he gains face by setting pigswill before Lee family and pushing our noses in the trough! You translate, first daughter!’

‘Has Honourable Father forgotten his foreign-devil talk, then?’ smiled Chee Laan. He caught her by the wrist in a play of rough affection. Raven saw her wince with pain, though her smile never faltered. Too low for anyone to hear, he hissed, ‘Do not quiz me, rat! I expend a fortune on your education, pour my gold down a worthless hole. Show me some return on my money!’

‘
Your
money!’ Chee Laan smiled bitterly into his eyes, which were glazed now with rage and drink, deeply sunken into bloated rolls of fat. ‘Family money! Grandmother’s money!’

The fat man belched and released her arm with a vicious little shove. ‘Translate. Give time for think. Keep you busy, besides, stop you rubbing your whore’s body against that long-nose devil who looks at you with eyes of baboon in rut!’ He tugged her down to the seat beside him. ‘Now. Ask this foreign red-hair devil how many helicopters he got. I want helicopter!’

When van Hooten heard the question, duly translated, he grimaced ruefully, scratched his head like a yokel and looked up at the carved ceiling. ‘Aw, shucks, Mr Lee, now I confess you got me there! I don’t know that I’m in a position to give you an exact figure. But America has a full complement of materiel, optimally deployed for the defence of our valued ally, the great Thai nation, and the preservation of her traditional freedoms.’

Lee narrowed his eyes to slits. His face twisted with malevolence. Crossing his bronzeware fork and spoon, he dive-bombed his messy plate, scattering rice and shreds of shrimp. With a burping roar, like a toddler imitating a plane, he cried ‘Heli-copter!’ Seeing the havoc he had caused on the polished teak table, he creased his face in a demonic grin and roared with laughter. Remnants of food clung to his chin; scraps were caught in his gums and gold teeth. His mother’s black onyx eyes flickered over him thoughtfully and as quickly away, as though he were someone else’s badly behaved toddler and she wished they would have the social grace to remove him. Once again, conversation ceased. Then a babble of voices broke out as people resumed animated conversation to cover the embarrassing moment.

Just as it seemed the feast was getting back on track, there was a sudden deafening roar. Stunned again into silence, people stared around wildly. In the sudden quiet, a male voice, unnaturally high, shrieking in Thai, bounced off the walls. Colonel Sya was on his feet, swift and agile as a hunting cheetah breaking cover. He seized his radio, listened, then shouted, ‘Robbery at the Lee Bank!’

‘Whassay?’ bellowed Mr Lee, suddenly alert and apparently sober.

Amused, Sya Dam turned and looked at him. ‘Afraid so. They broke into your vault, Mr Lee!’ he said. The two men, both powerfully built, one bulky with muscle, the other with blubber, stared at one another. Lee had turned a sickly butter-yellow colour. Outrage and disbelief struggled on his features. Sya, straight-backed, authoritative, stared him down with a challenge in his eyes. Then he turned and was gone. The mosquito screen clattered shut behind him.

A babble of shocked voices burst out. Chee Laan had moved quickly to her grandmother’s side. The formal dignity of the occasion was shattered. People rose, collecting their possessions, asking each other excited questions. Chee Laan’s father crashed his balled fist into the table, scattering tableware and food.

‘Rob my Walt!’ he yelled, his competence in English miraculously restored. ‘You tell me how in bloody hell no-good shit-eating turtle-egg come in my Walt?’

‘Dynamite, maybe?’ suggested van Hooten helpfully. ‘Maybe blasted their way in—it’s been done before.’ Lee blew a raspberry of contempt. His saliva contaminated Mrs van Hooten, who maintained a stony reserve.

‘Diana-mite? Using diana-mite, that not some two-satang dogshit Thai
catoy
. Diana-mite, that organised stuff, maybe Commie terrorist. Saboteur, maybe!’

‘Political motives can never be entirely ruled out.’ Van Hooten composed his features in a mask of statesmanlike gravitas. ‘Your robbers could be small fry, with bigger fish in the background.’

‘I’m sure you can safely leave everything in the capable hands of the authorities, Mr Lee,’ Mrs van Hooten said, discreetly dabbing sauce spots off her silk evening skirt.

‘Petty criminals! Scum!’ Prince Premsakul demonstrated his good breeding by sipping his drink unperturbed. ‘Chuck ‘em in the chokey! Only solution. These antisocial elements. All pinkos, what? Cool their heels and cool their heads.’

‘No doubt Honourable Father would reintroduce the third degree,’ Pim challenged. Ignoring his scowling offspring, the prince smiled imperturbably, cradling his drink in one plump paw. Merriment shook his rotund body.

‘No need for accidents at the police station. With Buddhists, all is so much easier; one can rely upon the sensitive conscience.’

‘How reassuring! It would be uncomfortable to take a fall in leg-irons,’ Pim retorted. ‘What if the robbers are not Buddhists? What if they are foreigners?’

After another tense silence, Lee shouted, ‘Need to break heads, go break heads! But catch me dogpiss
catoy
blow hole in my Walt, get me his ass pretty damn quick!
Farang
,
catoy
, commie, ne’er mind, all same, break head!’ He lurched unsteadily to his feet.

‘I hardly think, little lady,’ the American colonel said, looking hard at Pim, ‘that we need seriously entertain any notion the perpetrators would be Caucasians.’

Raven was aware, catching van Hooten’s eye, that he knew not only that the bank robbers were not locals, but that he knew who they were, and more besides. Urgency seized Raven. Sya already had a head start. He needed to get after him, fast.

Fortunately, the party was dead in the water. The guests made their farewells as swiftly as convention allowed, although Raven was seething with impatience. Prince Prem decorously waddled over to him and shook his hand. The touch of his plump fingers was soft as a pampered woman’s. His good humour was undisturbed.

‘Shockin’ business, what?’ The prince beamed up at Raven. ‘Look here, old chap. Had a bit of a rummage, managed to come up with one or two poetic doodles. Thai lyric poetry. Poor things, but mine own. Done in the style of the Immortal Bard. Cast an eye, old chap, if you’ve a spare moment.’ He nodded and wandered back to collect the rest of his party.

‘His wretched sonnets! Some timing!’ Chee Laan whispered as they queued to take their leave. ‘I hope you’re not fond of poetry? I’ve seen some of the prince’s efforts!’

Raven murmured an absent reply. Suddenly he made up his mind. He was certain the highwaymen had been sent to kill him—and possibly van Hooten as well, if the American’s alarm and bewilderment were genuine. Yet the killer had backed off, recognising Raven. That hired assassin was Angel Fleischer. He remembered, blindingly, Fleischer’s expertise with explosives. He decided he had to gamble on Chee Laan. How would she react when he asked her help in a venture that had nothing to do with romance but everything to do with Angel Fleischer, and whatever he was up to? A venture that could set both their lives at risk?

He leaned close and murmured urgently, ‘Chee Laan, I need your car. Now.’

She darted a quick, unnervingly comprehending look at him and shook her head. ‘Only comes with a chauffeuse.’

‘No!’ Raven protested sharply. ‘You don’t understand. It could be dangerous.’

She laid a hand on his arm. ‘You are the one not understanding. But then, what can one expect of a foreign devil? I was trained by the best. By Fleischer. Let’s go!’

He saw she was smiling. Her eyes sparkled, like a little girl honoured by inclusion in her big brother’s gang’s adventure. They made their farewells. She looked very small between the tall Westerners, doll-like, achingly vulnerable. He felt an intense compulsion to protect her, and at the same time a profound sense of unease.