Chapter 09 – It is Later Than You Think
Liling's face went as white as Lifeng's. "What have you done?"
"You know cellphones are a wonderful thing, so why didn't you call?" said Lifeng smiling. She bustled around the bed feverishly pulling the plastic drop cloth tight and tucking in the ends with a certain preciseness. "Why aren't you with my Revy? Where is she? Is this a surprise?"
"No! It's all going wrong -- I couldn't get a signal. What are you doing? What are you wearing?" Liling collapsed in a chair and pulled off her broken heels with a grimace. Chuluun stood silently by the door, the nervous Agent 'Cooper' rocking back and forth on his heels, stood at his side.
Lifeng pirouetted. She was garbed entirely in black leather. Black military boots sheathed her feet. A tactical vest swathed her chest. Kevlar slash resistant gloves covered her hands.
"...the shoulder pads – so late 80s -- I took those out" she said sweeping back the layered hair with a spastic brush. "Great White will be the last thing she ever, ever sees! Now, what happened?"
"It won't work," said Liling wearily, tossing the shoes aside. "Neither of us are our Ayi. I got another taste of how fast 'your' Revy works. I couldn't keep up and she abandoned me when things got out of hand. When night comes she's going to through here like a tornado and nothing will stop her. Right now she's intent on pulling a kamikaze on Big Brother."
"Oh," Lifeng stopped in mid turn, frowned. There was dust and mildew on the dresser, it bothered her. "Chulunn's been listening in on Big Brother's shipboard communications. He's pulling up anchor and leaving in a couple of hours. Brother is not coming ashore. He thinks Bai-ji Shin is here, not the Russian cur with the melted face he so desired to meet. We're going to have to pass on the fishing expedition. It makes me sad."
'We're done," said Liling standing up. "We have to leave now. Chuluun, get the men, get the car..."
"What has happened to your obligation to your elder sister, your proper sense of giri?" said Lifeng, her eyes narrowed to a faint scarlet glitter between the lids. "Our blood is Chinese, our nationality Sarkhanese, but our souls will always be Japanese."
"It is too hard a burden to bear," said Liling miserably.
Shall we run back to Sarkhan then as fast as we can? Get the crazy sister locked up in that house on a hill and back on medication so she doesn't cut up the servant's children? You'd like that wouldn't you? Are you going to crawl back to Cheong now!"
"No, I'm not, I..."
"I like it here," interrupted Lifeng sharply. "I like this city. I like the way it smells. I finally feel ... right about everything. I'm staying. And do you think after killing the geek, the black man and the boyfriend she's going to let us walk away? And I'm not done with this Revy, this chòu biǎozi of a Chinese-American mongrel."
"She didn't do it!" shouted Liling furiously. "She said she was in a coma and in a hospital when Ayi was murdered, she said so! It's not her!"
"And you believed her?" Lifeng frowned again and bent to pick up Liling's shoes, looked around for a convenient spot to place them. "What? You thought she'd spill her guts to you after a brief introduction? Hugs and kisses? Are you stupid?"
Liling's mouth twisted and she looked down. "Not that stupid. I stuck the transmitter in her bag. If she's still in Roanapur, we should know be able to figure out when she moves on us."
Lifeng took the time to put the shoes down side by side against the wall before she clapped in approval. "Oh, well done. I'm sorry, I take it back. That's brilliant!"
"Eh, sorry to interrupt," interrupted Agent 'Cooper' who had been unable to follow the discussion. The twins had been switching back and forth between Mandarin Chinese and English without any rhyme or reason. "But, I'd like to get paid. Gunplay isn't my stuff. If I had any idea the bitch of the Lagoon Company was involved I would have doubled my price for that bit of work I pulled on the police. That almost gave me a bad case of the trots."
"You like money, don't you" said Lifeng tonelessly in English. "Consider it tripled if you stick around a bit longer. And why don't you get yourself a drink, we brought some whiskey along. Now I need to speak to my sister alone. Chulunn, get the rest of the Luak's old gang here, we need to speak to everybody in fifteen minutes or so. We don't have much time."
Lifeng bent and picked up the large bag that was leaning against the side of the bed with the plastic sheeting. She unzipped the bag and with trembling, eager hands pulled out a hacksaw.
--
Revy slid down the side of the embankment, slipped and almost impaled herself on a cluster of mangrove roots sticking out of the layer of garbage and mud.
Twice on the hour, while navigating through the narrow walkways she had attempted to use the red public phone booths situated near the main avenue, if it could be called that, cutting through the heart of the Salam. The first one had been out of service, two policemen had loitered by the second and she had been foced to retreat, cursing, back into the maze of the slum.
The residents gawked from the open doorways of the tin roofed shacks as she dodged and twisted her way between them. In the past few years an influx of Muslim refugees from the southern provinces of Narathiwat and Pattani had crowded the slums even further. The stares and shouts were not friendly; her manner of dress barely drew notice in the southern and central areas of the city, here she was truly fereng.
Since crossing the canal several hours ago, she had been on the move. The large amounts of rum she had drunk that morning with Eda in place of food had left her with a horrific headache that wouldn't stop. She was desperately tired and dehydrated.
"Miss Revy feels worse than shit," she announced thickly to the egrets picking through the mud. She sagged back panting against the embankment and took stock of her surroundings.
After the continual distraction of the slums just the other side of the raised embankment, the silence was a relief. The northern estuary dripped through a narrow morass of mud flats and thick beds of mangrove roots. As it opened into the Gulf of Thailand, lines of fishing stakes intersected and weaved about in unknown divisions. Two hundred meters down on the right a timberwork jetty poked out into the listless waves, a solitary fisherman perched on the end.
On the other side, the narrow peninsula of Nakhon Ratch thrust itself out and then curved towards the north like the crook of a finger. A large grove on the opposing embankment hid all but the rootops of the cluster of buildings built at the tip of the peninsula.
She looked out into the Gulf and into the small breeze that had begun to blow. The sky and ocean had merged into a steel gray miasma with the promise of an approaching storm, unusual for the season. A large white motor yacht stood at anchor not far off the peninsula. Further out the fishing boats were coming in for the evening, beating their way through the waves towards the Buddha Mount and the harbor.
Revy frowned and fumbled in the bag. Taking out a small pair of binoculars shefocused them first on the yacht, then the peninsula and lastly the man on the pier. She grunted.
"I know you," she said softly. She adjusted the eyepieces. The fisherman, casually sitting at the end with the pole propped up beside him, likewise had binoculars and was watching both the yacht and the peninsula. "You work for Mr. Chang don'cha?"
Revy put the binoculars back in the bag. She examined the contents critically: Four packs of cigarettes. A thick bundle of 500 baht banknotes with the bespectacled image of Rama IX. Another bundle of 100 dollar bills, courtesy of one Janet Bhai – indistinguishable from real currency. The backup semi-auto – a Taurus PT-92 17 9-millimeter with the steel slide and black frame, unlike the customized Berettas. Several passports, a gun license (just in case), and four extra 20 round magazines. -- and there was something extra underneath the gun magazines.
She picked out the small dark plastic device with the keychain ring hanging at one end. Flipping it over with her fingers she frowned, bewildered. On the back, a white piece of tape had written on it in blocky letters the name 'Benjamin.'
"Damn. Benny, keep out of my stuff," she flipped it dismissively back, let the bag fall on the ground. "Tagged me like somethin' from a nature special."
The body was a mangled pile of flesh and clothing, one leg was missing. There was only one side left to the face but it was badly burnt and unrecognizable. What was left of the grey slacks and white shirt were charred and torn.
Suddenly Revy howled. The egrets burst into startled flight. She lurched sideways and down without a care. Her arms and legs thrashed convulsively and she balled her fists and pounded them into the garbage and filth of the bank with a hysterical strength, heedless of injury.
She reared back on her haunches. Brought the bloody, mud covered hands up and clawed at her face, leaving tracks down her cheeks.
"Miss Revy's going to kill you Jin Cheong," she gasped out in between heaves. "You son of a bitch! You should'a stayed in Bangkok! She's gonna make it a real goddamn horror show."
--
She went inland. Mangrove saplings grew thick, but there was a rickety wooden footpath laid down on top of the soft mud by the riverbank, and she moved through the dense growth swiftly. Her only company were the mudskippers who scrambled for their burrows as she passed by. The Salam had come to an gradual end on the other side of the embankment, rows of rusted warehouses and garbage mounds were randomly visible through the undergrowth.
The estuary narrowed rapidly and the further shore of the Nakhon Ratch peninsula grew near to within a near forty meters or so. The peninsula itself narrowed to a narrow sandy causeway held in place by breakwaters, barely wide enough across for a single lane entry road before joining up with the mainland. One could see across the narrow causeway upon the miles and miles of shrimp farms that stretched to the north; long narrow man-made ponds with embankments in between each of them.
Suddenly Revy stopped and knelt down on the slats of the footpath. She fumbled in the bag and pulled out the binoculars again.
A woman was running down the Nakhon Ratch causeway towards the mainland.
It was Liling. In the approaching twilight it appeared she was running on a black line on the white shimmer of the Gulf waters behind her. She was barefoot and staggering. Her long black hair blew in the increasingly strong wind, hiding her face.
Revy watched with detached interest. She looked to the right as a jeep roared out the wooded grove from the far end of the peninsula in pursuit.
Liling stumbled and fell down in the road directly across from Revy. The jeep came to a screeching halt and a group of men jumped out, rifles sticking in the air. Revy peered through the gap in the mangrove thicket from the other side, hidden from view.
Revy could hear the voices clearly across the narrow width of the river.
"No, no, no!" yelled Liling, as the lead man approached her. He was an enormous hulk of a man. "Tell Jin Cheong I know..."
He bent and appeared to strike Liling. She went sprawling. Two men stepped forward and picked the woman up, her legs dragged along limply. They scrambled back into the jeep and reversed the vehicle with a grinding of gears until they reached a spot wide enough to turn around in. The jeep then drove back towards the hidden buildings and the groves.
"Hysterical twat," commented Revy crudely. She lowered the binoculars, and then suddenly blinked. She rummaged through the bag again and pulled out the GPS device.
"Benjamin, Mr. Benjamin, shit! He never labels stuff like that," she bit her lip in sudden suspicion. "Bull! It's Benny, it's always Benny. Nice try, but not good enough."
It was starting to rain. Revy stood up, favoring the injured leg. She would slip across Baat dâng jà-mòok; the Hangman's Bridge, at nightfall just a quarter mile upstream and then make her way towards the peninsula.
"Let's go."