The Windup Girl

"Really? You don't seem bothered." Anderson gestures back at the rest of the Phalanx. "Everyone else is pissing and moaning about how you keep interfering with politics, cozying up with Akkarat and the Trade Ministry. But here you are smiling ear to ear. You could be a Thai."

Carlyle shrugs. Sir Francis, elegantly dressed, carefully coiffed, emerges from a back room. Carlyle asks for whiskey and Anderson holds up his own empty glass.

"No ice," Sir Francis says. "The mulie men want more money to run the pump."

"Pay them, then."

Sir Francis shakes his head as he takes Anderson's glass. "If you bargain when they squeeze your balls, they will only squeeze again. And I cannot bribe the Environment Ministry to give me access to the coal grid like you farang."

He turns away and pulls down a bottle of Khmer whiskey, pours an immaculate shot. Anderson wonders if any of the rumors about the man are true.

Otto, now mumbling incoherently about "fugging dribigles," claims that Sir Francis was an old Chaopraya, a high assistant to the crown, forced out of the palace in a power play. This theory has as much merit as the idea that he is former servant of the Dung Lord, retired, or that he is a Khmer prince, displaced and living incognito ever since the Thai Kingdom was enlarged to swallow the East. Everyone agrees he must have been of high rank-it's the only thing that explains his disdain for his patrons.

"Pay now," he says as he sets the shots on the bar.

Carlyle laughs. "You know our credit's good."

Sir Francis shakes his head. "You both lost plenty at the anchor pads. Everyone knows it. Pay now."

Carlyle and Anderson shell out coins. "I thought we had a better relationship than that," Anderson complains.

"This is politics." Sir Francis smiles. "Maybe you are here tomorrow. Maybe you are swept away like Expansion plastic on a beach. There are whisper sheets on all the street corners, calling for Captain Jaidee to be made a chaopraya advisor to the palace. If he rises, then all you farang…" he makes a shooing motion with his hand, "all gone." He shrugs. "General Pracha's radio stations are calling Jaidee a tiger and hero, and the student associations have been calling for the Trade Ministry to be closed down and placed under the white shirts. The Trade Ministry lost face. Farang and Trade are close like farang and fleas."

"Nice."

Sir Francis shrugs. "You do smell."

Carlyle scowls. "Everyone smells. It's the goddamn hot season."

Anderson intercedes. "I suppose Trade is seething, losing face like that." He takes a sip of the warm whiskey and grimaces. He used to like room-temperature liquor, before he came here.

Sir Francis counts their coins into his cash box. "Minister Akkarat is still smiling, but the Japanese want reparations for their losses and the white shirts will never give them. So either Akkarat will pay to make up for what the Tiger of Bangkok has done, or he will lose face to the Japanese as well."

"You think the Japanese will leave?"

Sir Francis makes a face of disgust. "The Japanese are like the calorie companies, always looking for a way in. They will never go away." He moves to the other end of the bar, leaving them once again isolated.

Anderson pulls out a ngaw and offers it Carlyle. "Want one?"

Carlyle takes the fruit and holds it up for examination. "What the hell is this?"

"Ngaw."

"It reminds me of cockroaches." He makes a face. "You're an experimental bastard. I'll give you that." He pushes the ngaw back across to Anderson and carefully wipes his hand on his trousers.

"Afraid?" Anderson goads.

"My wife liked eating new things, too. Couldn't stop herself. Had the madness for flavor. Just couldn't resist trying new foods." Carlyle shrugs. "I'll wait and see if you're spitting up blood next week."

They lean back on their stools and gaze across the dust and heat to where the Victory Hotel gleams white. Down an alley a washing woman has set out laundry in pans near the rubble of an old high-rise. Another is washing her body, carefully scrubbing under her sarong, its fabric clinging to her skin. Children run naked through the dirt, jumping over bits of broken concrete that were laid down more than a hundred years ago in the old Expansion. Far down the street the levees rise, holding back the sea.

"How much did you lose?" Carlyle finally asks.

"Plenty. Thanks to you."

Carlyle doesn't respond to the jab. He finishes his shot and waves for another. "Really no ice?" he asks Sir Francis. "Or is this just because you think we'll be gone tomorrow?"

"Ask me tomorrow."

"If I'm still here tomorrow will you have ice then?" Carlyle asks.

Sir Francis flashes a grin. "Depends how much you keep paying mulies and megodonts for unloading freight. Everyone talks about getting rich burning calories for farang… so no ice for Sir Francis."

"But if we're gone, no drinkers. Even if Sir Francis has got all the ice in the world."

Sir Francis shrugs. "As you say."