Free Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett Page B

You see, someone pays a bribe to the lottery operator, then they make a profit by selling the information to the pamphleteers. They have to pretend it’s mumbo-jumbo, as you put it, and dilute the success rate, or someone will get suspicious. It’s not as risky as bribing an operator, then winning the lottery outright. People get caught that way.
    I finally summon the courage to call Vikorn, who hates to have to deal with business when he’s at his retreat in Chiang Mai. He listens, though, and I note a catch in his voice when he says: “Nusee Jaema is involved? You’re sure?”
    “Yes. You know him?”
    “Of course. He’s the main moderate influence down there. He set up a network, which his son runs. He’s walking a tightrope. If he cooperates with us, his people might see him as a traitor. If he doesn’t, he might be seen as a militant.”
    “What kind of network?”
    “Information. You better go down there, see what you can find out.”
     
    There’s nothing for it, it seems, but a trip to the benighted South. But back at the bar next morning I am distracted, not for the first time, by an e-mail message on a computer monitor:
    Michael James Smith, born in Queens, City of New York, Social Security Number: 873 97 4506, profession: attorney; marital status: divorced (five times); children: three; financial position: wealthy; criminal record: none, successfully avoided conviction for substance abuse a number of times, by hiring an expensive lawyer. Military service: enlisted for Indochina War, 1969–70, rank of major; served with honor (Bronze Star and Purple Heart); believed to have attended detox program for alcoholism during March/April 1988; active member of Veterans Against the War.
    The e-mail comes from one Kimberley Jones, an FBI special agent who worked with me on the cobra case. The karmic reward I continue to enjoy from refusing to sleep with her, despite a campaign of threats, bribes, cajoling, and tantrums on her part, is that she has become a friend for life. (The karmic price is that she still won’t give up—this particular message is unique in that it is entirely free of sexual innuendo, declarations of undying lust, or the legendary fury of a woman scorned.) I am now inestimably in her debt, for she has adopted Thai ways to the extent of putting personal feelings before abstract duty and used the FBI database to illegally obtain these precious details of Michael James Smith, attorney, Vietnam war veteran, former user of Thai prostitutes (at least one, once), and father of at least four children, not three. My cell phone rings even while I’m staring at the screen.
    “You got it?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re reading it right now, aren’t you?”
    “Yes. How did you know that?”
    “Love intuition. How do you feel?”
    “Terrified.”
    “Going to get in touch with him?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Going to tell your mom?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You mean I went to all this trouble and risked my career just so you can do your Thai thing and think about it for the next three lifetimes?”
    “I want to thank you. You’ve done something no one else could have.”
    “Thank me with your body next time I’m over there.”
    “Okay.”
    Silence. “Was that a yes?”
    “Yes. How could I refuse?”
    “But you don’t really want to?”
    “Don’t be such a farang. I owe you, I’ll pay, you’ll enjoy.”
    Whispered: “Promise?”
    “Promise.”
    “Have you any idea how horny this is making me? How am I going to get back to sleep now?”
    “Thanks.”
    “I’m going to hang up, Sonchai. This is doing something to my head, I don’t know what.”
    “You can say heart if you like.”
    “Yes. Right. Heart. I said it. Bye.”
    She hangs up. Now I’m alone again with Michael James Smith, the Superman who came in from the war one fine night to find his destiny waiting behind a bar in Pat Pong. The man I mythologized long before I knew his name. The bastard whose bastard I am.
    I’m